


Four's a Crowd

by RosaleenBan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Bot!Family, CA:WS Canon Compliant, Exploring Polyamory, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, Misunderstandings & Secrets, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Overprotective!Clint, Polyamory - Triad, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyfidelity, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Really MCU canon compliance is a touch and go thing for this fic, Sassy!Jarvis, Secret Identity, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Thor is the best bro, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tropes taken seriously, not ca:cw compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-26 06:43:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14995073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaleenBan/pseuds/RosaleenBan
Summary: In an alternate universe, Tony Stark never came out as Iron Man, even to his teammates. Sometime after CA:WS, Bucky comes to the tower, regains his memory, and rekindles his relationship with Steve.A year later, Steve and Bucky realize neither of them have ever had sex with anyone else, and they probably won’t if they keep their relationship monogamous. When they decide they want to explore, Bucky decides to ask Tony for a one night stand, and Steve decides to ask Iron Man. Both of them bite off more than they can chew, as they both discover that they’re in love with their extracurricular lover - while still being madly in love with each other. Tony just hopes it’s all worth it, because if they ever find out it was him withbothof them, he’s pretty sure they’ll never want to see him again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have three outlined WinterIronShield fics where Tony has a secret identity. This is the first....who knows if I'll write them all, but it's one of my favorite tropes.
> 
> Also, this fic has very few warnings, but it does contain an explicit first-person account of an anxiety attack in the last third of the story, with lots of care after. It'll be warned in the beginning of the chapter, but here's your warning from the start if you can't read that.

It was Steve’s idea to begin with.

Of course it was. Steve always had the most outlandish ideas, always had to push the envelope. Even as a scrawny kid in Brooklyn, he had always had to go one step further, with no thought for his own health or the limits 1940’s culture wanted to put on him.

Bucky was just there to follow along and make sure Steve didn’t get himself or anyone else killed along the way.

Bucky had moved into Avengers Tower eighteen months ago at that point. Three months later, he had moved back into Steve’s room, memories restored and Hydra programming more or less eradicated by Stark’s highly experimental B.A.R.F. tech. Both he and Steve had been happy to let their relationship pick up right where they had left off back in 1942.

Steve was just as shy about sex as he’d always been: a little reserved in the light of day, blushing about it in conversation, but absolutely enthusiastic in bed. Which was why Bucky never expected any sort of conversation on the topic from him.

“Hey Buck, we’ve been together for what? 75 years now?” Steve had started, a little warily. They were sitting in the living room of their shared apartment in Avengers Tower, on opposite ends of the couch.

Bucky looked up from the book he was reading on his StarkPad and raised a suspicious eyebrow. “That’s one way of looking at it, I guess. Why?”

“And both of us were each other’s firsts, right?” Steve continued, feeding Bucky’s suspicion further.

“That’s what you told me at the time, yeah,” Bucky said, careful tone at odds with the substance of the teasing quip.

“Well, I’ve been doing some reading,” Steve started again, then paused, considering his words.

“Spit it out, Stevie,” Bucky said, putting his tablet on the table so he could give his partner his full attention.

“Iwaswonderingifweshouldrtryopeningourrelationship,” Steve said in one short breath.

“What?” Bucky asked, not sure he had heard that right – and if he had, not sure that those words meant what he thought they meant. He still wasn’t one hundred percent on twenty-first century language, but he thought he knew this.

“I want to try opening our relationship. If you want. Only if you’re enthusiastically on board, actually,” Steve clarified. “I –I thought maybe it might be fun to try having sex with other people? Together or apart? Whatever you’re interested in. If you’re interested at all.”

Bucky’s mouth dropped open wordlessly.

“I got the idea from you, actually,” Steve went on, obviously embarrassed but going over a mental checklist of justifications. “When we were in bed, and you were saying how much you wondered if other guys – ah – _reacted_ like me,” Steve blushed at the last, because even after all this time, he was still equally turned on and scandalized by dirty talk. But then his eyes got sweet and sincere, and his voice went a little soft. “And I got to thinking, neither of us really know. And we’re not ever gonna know, because you’re it for me, and I’m pretty sure I’m it for you. So maybe it would be fun to just – you know. Try it? Once or twice?”

“You serious, Stevie?” Bucky asked.

“I wouldn’t put myself through this conversation if I wasn’t,” Steve told him. “You can take some time. Think about it.”

“Okay,” Bucky said decisively. Because he really didn’t have to think over anything. He loved Steve, wanted him for life, but he certainly wasn’t going to turn down the chance to take another fella out for a spin.

“Okay?” Steve asked, surprised note in his voice.

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky said. “I’m in.”

Steve smiled, only a little incredulous. “Okay,” he said slowly. He reached out his hand and grabbed one of Bucky’s, pulling him in for a kiss.

It was soft and sweet, with no entrance for Bucky to push it deeper. Steve pulled away far too soon.

“Ground rules?” Steve asked.

“What did you have in mind?” Bucky settled back into his side of the couch, but grabbed one of Steve’s feet and put it in his lap where he could stroke the muscles of his calve enticingly.

“Would you want to - ah,” Steve blushed again. “Should we be together or separate?”

“What are you more comfortable with?” Bucky asked. For all that this was Steve’s idea, it was clear that Bucky was the one more comfortable with it. With everything he’d been through, he wasn’t fazed by much anymore.

Also, Steve was clearly under the very false preconception that he needed to protect Bucky’s feelings. Bucky knew exactly where he stood in their relationship: Steve had moved heaven and earth to get him back; had done everything in his power to help him heal, even when it looked like there was no hope of their relationship ever rekindling; had welcomed him back to his bed with more patience and love than Bucky thought existed in the world. That he wanted this now didn’t scare Bucky; it made him breathe a sigh of relief that Steve was actually taking his own wants and needs into account for once.

“Separate?” Steve asked. “At least the first time? If we do it more than once. We can try that and then reassess after?”

“Reassess? What is this, a battle plan?” Bucky teased, pressing his fingers into Steve’s too-tense calf muscle and starting to massage it.

“Could be,” Steve told him saucily. “Also, never stop. That feels wonderful.”

“Whatever you say, doll,” Bucky replied. “So, we each get to pick a fella – or dame,” he added, knowing that Steve liked both, even if he didn’t. “And then what? Dinner and dancing before we show them a good time?”

“I’m not really interested in going on a date,” Steve told him. “And I’d want to be up front from the beginning that we’re just looking for the physical, nothing else. Doesn’t seem fair otherwise.”

“Alright,” Bucky agreed thoughtfully, continuing his massage. Scenarios ran through his head: everything from the online dating forums he had heard Sam talking about to the brothels some of the Howling Commandos had frequented during the war. None of them felt right. “I don’t know if I can be alone with a stranger like that,” he admitted. He looked down at his other arm, the one that still laid on the back of the couch, as he still didn’t trust its mechanical fine motor control to massage Steve, even after all the time Tony had spent upgrading it. “Don’t know if they’re gonna be all that comfortable with me, either.”

“It doesn’t have to be a stranger,” Steve told him, a little too casually. “As long as we’re clear and honest up front.”

And that was an idea. He flexed the fingers on his left hand, thinking it over. His mechanic was known for his open and indiscriminate sex life, for one.

“You have anyone in mind?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe Iron Man?” Steve said.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Really? You think he’ll take the armor off for you? Show you his face?” No one knew who Tony’s mysterious bodyguard was under the armor, and Bucky was pretty sure he wasn’t gonna out himself just for the prospect of sex. Even sex with Steve Rogers.

Steve looked down, chagrined. “I don’t need to see his face,” the other super soldier admitted. “I mean, it would be nice, but – even without knowing who’s under there, he’s my best friend, after you, you know? If I’m gonna try something new without you, he’s my first choice partner.” He was blushing again, adorably. “What about you?”

“Maybe Tony?” Bucky asked.

“Really?” he responded. Steve and their resident mechanic-slash-benefactor weren’t close, mostly because Tony had made it a point to keep his distance from all of the Avengers, but he had certainly seemed to soften to him after all the help he had given Bucky with his arm.

“All his experience? I bet he’d make it worth my while,” Bucky said salaciously, deflecting Steve’s curiosity.

“You scoundrel,” Steve laughed, playfully kicking Bucky with the foot in his lap.

“Keep that up and I’m gonna stop,” Bucky warned him with a laugh of his own.

“No you won’t,” Steve said. “You love me too much.”

And god, when he looked at Bucky like that, laughing and smiling, like Bucky was the only person in his world, Bucky couldn’t find it in him to argue.

 

…

 

Tony was in the lab, upgrading the armor when Bucky sought him out.

“Sir, Sgt. Barnes is at the door,” JARVIS told him. “Shall I let him know you’re busy?”

“It’s ok,” Tony said putting the gauntlet he was working on down. “You can let him in.”

“Might I remind you that you’re currently not wearing anything under your tee-shirt?” JARVIS continued. “The arc reactor is quite conspicuous.”

“Damn. Thanks, J. Tell him to give me two minutes,” Tony told his AI, grateful that JARVIS was looking out for him.

“Very well, Sir.”

He slipped off his shirt and pulled a thin, opaque black half-shirt over his chest, snapping it into place quickly with practiced movements. Usually the thing was on him any time he left his bedroom, preventing anyone from seeing the glow of the arc reactor in his chest, but it had been chafing this morning when he decided to take it off. The lab had been in blackout mode since, darkened windows protecting Tony’s secret.

He shook his head as he pulled his thin cotton tee-shirt back over his head. He had been vigilant about his secret identity for so long, it should be second nature to him. It was worrisome to start slipping now.

“Alright, let him in,” Tony said, trying to push the thought out of his head.

Bucky smiled at him as soon as he walked through the door of the lab: a wide, charming smile that was rumored to break the hearts of half the girls in wartime Brooklyn.

“Hey, Tones,” he said, sauntering right up to the workbench Tony was seated at and leaning against it.

“Hey Terminator,” Tony returned, genuinely happy to see the soldier here. He enjoyed it whenever Bucky came down to the lab; he had a genuine interest in Tony’s work, and he was always willing to lend a hand. Beyond that, he was good company: smart conversationalist with a sarcastic streak that rivaled Tony’s own. “What’s up? Your arm acting up again?”

“Not today,” Bucky told him. “I actually have something I wanted to talk to you about. Something not related to tech.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and took a seat on his stool, arms crossed across his chest. “What’s on your mind?”

“Ah, maybe I should call it a proposition,” Bucky continued, piquing Tony’s curiosity even further. “You see, Stevie and I were talking,” he said slowly, starting to play with the edge of the workbench nervously. From the way he was blushing, Tony could only imagine what his next words would be. He had to actively bite his tongue to stop himself from telling the soldier to just spit it out. “And both of us have never been with anyone else before. We’re curious, and we want to try it out. But you know, I’m not the kind of guy who can sleep with just anyone.”

He paused, letting Tony fill in the blanks. There were only two possible ways this could go. Since the one he _wanted_ was so clearly out of reach, he asked. “You need me to help you find an escort service? A discreet one?”

Bucky’s eyes got comically wide. “No!” he spat out, putting out both hands. “No, not at all.”

_Oh,_ Tony thought, brain short circuiting with the implication. _The other option._

He had to hear Bucky ask for himself. “So how can I help you, cowboy?”

“I’m not interested in having sex with a stranger,” Bucky admitted. “I was actually hoping you could help me more personally? You and me, one night, no strings?”

“And Steve’s ok with this?” Tony asked.

“Stevie has his eye on someone else,” Bucky told him. “We agreed we each get one, but only once.”

“And you want to try with me? To have sex with me?” Tony asked. He knew his eyes had to be wide with shock by now.

Bucky shrugged. “Figure, you’re my best friend here, ’cept for Steve.  You have experience; I know you like men sometimes.” He paused. “You don’t have to say yes, though. I understand if you’re not interested, I don’t want you to feel –”

“Oh, I’m very interested,” Tony blurted out. He hadn’t had sex with anyone but Pepper since Afghanistan, and they had broken up well over a year ago. He had spent the better part of that year stubbornly _not_ pining over Steve and Bucky – trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that his crush on them was just a remnant from his Cap-obsessed adolescence. And now he was being asked to have sex with one of them, exactly once, and then pretend it never happened.

This was a _terrible_ idea, but there was no way he was going to turn it down.

“Really?” Bucky asked.

“Of course I am,” Tony said, giving himself permission to rake his eyes up and down Bucky’s frame appreciatively. “I just want to make sure everyone’s on the same page here. What exactly are you offering?”

Bucky moved a little closer and put a hand on Tony’s cheek. “Whatever you want, doll,” he said. “You’re the genius. Ground rules are that we only get one night, and we get veto power over the others’ choice. Stevie already knows I’m here, so you’re in the clear.”

“Nice to hear I pass muster,” Tony quipped.

“More than,” Bucky agreed, a tender undertone to his voice.

Was that how he’d want to play it? Tony would honestly take anything he could get from the super soldier – from either of them – but he would have to prepare himself for tender. He knew he wasn’t going to come out of this unscathed.

It would be worth it, though.

“Do you have a timeline for this?” Tony asked.

Bucky shook his head, hand moving down to Tony’s shoulder, where it played with the collar of his tee-shirt playfully. It was too close to the arc reactor, and Tony wasn’t sure if he wanted to lean into the touch or push him away.

He settled on catching Bucky’s hand between the two of his. “Give me a few days. I have some things to take care of over the weekend, but Monday? I can give you as long as you want Monday.”

Bucky smiled and squeezed Tony’s hand. “I’m looking forward to it.”

 

…

 

Tony should have been prepared when Steve approached Iron Man in the lounge the next day. At the very least, he shouldn’t have been surprised: Iron Man was Cap’s best friend, and he already knew the good Captain’s mission.

But really, who in their right mind was going to ask someone who they had only met while _in a suit of armor_ to have sex with them? Someone who would not show them his face, and who would, by necessity, have to keep at least part of said suit on during the entire act?

Captain Rogers, as always, was full of surprises.

“Hey, Shellhead,” Steve had started, with none of the charm Bucky had displayed. He approached Iron Man just like he would any other day: as his best friend.

“What’s up, Cap?” Iron Man asked, putting down the tablet he had been reading from. Tony often read the news in his armor like this when he had time for it, making a show of Iron Man being available to the team, even if Tony Stark wasn’t.

“I, ah – I have a favor to ask you,” Steve told him. “And I don’t want you to feel pressured at all. I know it’s not normal between friends. But the thing is, Bucky and I were talking, and we both want to – _explore_ – a bit, outside our relationship. Casually, I mean.”

Tony’s eyebrows were up in his hairline, by now, and Iron Man tilted his head to the side to physically demonstrate his surprise to hear those words come out of Captain America’s mouth. “You’ve come a long way from the 40’s haven’t you?”

Steve’s blush was really something to behold, but to his credit, he kept talking. “You could say that,” he agreed. “Anyway, we decided we’d each get one night with someone else, just to try it. We want to be up front that we’re both dedicated to each other, so it’s just for one night. But I was wondering – well, both of us would prefer to do this with a friend. And, since you’re my best friend…?”

“Steve Rogers, are you propositioning me?” Iron Man asked, his voice sounding too soft even through the suit’s vocal modulators.

“I’m trying to,” Steve admitted. “What do you think?”

He looked down at himself. “Not sure how you think it’ll work, being in this suit and all,” he said, more curious about how Steve would answer than worried. He had enough tricks up his sleeve to make it work – and he _would_ make it work. Tony knew he was going to Hell for it, but he thought it would be worth every second he was able to touch Steve.

“I don’t expect you to show me your face or anything,” Steve reassured him. “But I know the armor’s – what did Tony call it? Modular? You’ve taken off the gloves before. I figured at least one version would let you take off what you need to have fun.”

_Mark X_ , Tony thought immediately. The abdominal core and chest plate were separate on that one, and the chest plate was larger than some of the others. Tony would only need to keep his chest, shoulders and head covered. Technically, it would work.

“Would that be fun, really?” Iron Man prodded. “I wouldn’t be able to kiss you, or do anything with my mouth.”

“You could talk,” Steve said. “I like it when you do that.”

Tony laughed. The sound came out crackly in the armor, but Steve had been around him enough to grow used to it. “Really, though. If I’m gonna keep the helmet on, I’ll need the chest, too, for the arc reactor to keep it running, and that means at least the shoulders. You’d be ok with that?”

Steve looked at him with that far-too earnest gaze he was known for. “Iron Man, you’re my best friend. The only person in the twenty-first century I’d be comfortable asking for this sort of thing, really. I don’t care what you have to do to feel comfortable; I’d really like to try this with you.”

Tony couldn’t help smiling. “Alright,” he agreed, like he knew he would from the start. “I’ll have to get Mr. Stark’s help on a couple of things, but I think we can make it work.”

Steve’s smile was bright and excited. “Great! Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it,” Iron Man told him. “Anything particular you want on the menu?”

Steve shook his head. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, Shellhead. I know you like to keep your boundaries, so just let me know where the lines are, and we’ll go from there.”

“Will do,” Iron Man told him. “Thanks.”

Oddly, Tony really did appreciate the thought. There were things he couldn’t do as Iron Man, as much as he wanted to. Knowing that Steve recognized that was a surprising relief.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky & Tony get their night together

Monday evening could not come quickly enough.

Bucky was on edge all weekend, pacing and cleaning his weapons obsessively.

Steve had teased him about it. _“It’s Tony, Buck. You could go down to his lab right now if you want to see him so bad.”_

Bucky had snarled at him, then fucked him soundly into their mattress. It was a nice distraction, for a while at least.

When it finally did come, Bucky barely knew what to do with himself. He had tried so hard for so long not to think of Tony in any romantic or sexual way – to not even entertain an idea that would possibly hurt Steve – that he didn’t have a plan for this. He didn’t even know what to wear.

Steve had helped him pick out the fitted charcoal grey sweater and dark jeans, laughing at him the entire time.

 _“Well, if I thought I had anything to worry about before, I definitely don’t now,”_ Steve had teased. _“You used to be a lady-killer you know._ ” Steve didn’t understand that it had always been easier when it was an act – when he wasn’t actually interested in the person he was going out to impress, but was just trying to protect the secret of his and Steve’s relationship.

And now here he was. Bucky took a deep breath as he knocked on the door to Tony’s penthouse suite. None of the other Avengers had ever been up here – Tony had provided them all with very nice, very well appointed apartments a few floors down, but he had never invited anyone but Colonel Rhodes and maybe Pepper into his own room.

The door slid open automatically. Bucky looked around the very expensive, minimalist room. It was the kind of place that was meant for sleep and sex and very little else: the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows were both impressive and impersonal. There were no decorations on the walls, and only a single couch in a small sitting alcove to the right. To the left was a small kitchen area, then a hall that lead to what Bucky assumed were guest rooms beyond that. Double doors were flung open across from the main door, revealing a huge bed with deep burgundy covers sitting on a raised platform in an equally ostentatious but impersonal bedroom.

There were no knickknacks or even pictures anywhere in the room. Everything looked professionally designed.

It was enticing and beautiful, but it also felt incredibly lonely.

Tony was standing over to the left, hands in his pockets and leaning against expensive looking dining table by the kitchen. He was barefoot, but wearing a well-fitted red button-down shirt and black slacks that hugged his hips. Bucky couldn’t help staring; he was certain that he wouldn’t be disappointed by view from behind.

“Barnes!” Tony said, sounding somewhat surprised.

“You think I wasn’t going to show, Stark?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The whole situation’s a bit novel, don’t you think? Can’t blame a guy for caution with his optimism,” Tony told him. He spread out his arms in a shrug, and Bucky saw a closed bottle behind him, flanked by two lowball glasses.

“I guess not,” Bucky conceded. He took a few steps toward Tony and flashed him his most charming smile. “Hope I live up to the optimism, doll.”

Tony gave him an appraising look, eye lingering on how the sweater stretched over his chest. “So far, more than living up to it,” he all but purred.

Bucky’s smile stretched into something wolfish. Tony was clearly into this. This was happening.

He walked straight up into Tony’s space and used one finger to lift his chin and meet his eyes. “This ok?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, raising his hands to run down Bucky’s sides.

Bucky leaned down and kissed Tony hungrily. He brought his left hand up to hold the back of Tony’s head, pulling him in so Bucky could control the kiss. Tony gripped Bucky’s sides, fingers clawing into muscle as he held on.

Bucky only let it last a few seconds, barely taking the chance to explore Tony’s mouth, before pulling away. He smirked down at the shorter man.

“Yeah, definitely ok,” Tony said breathlessly. He turned his head toward the bottle beside him. “Wasn’t sure what kind of mood you were in. I know you usually can’t get drunk, but I called in a favor and got some Asgardian liquor from Thor if you’re interested.”

Bucky shook his head. “I want to remember this.”

He bent down to kiss Tony again, sweet and soft this time, and started unbuttoning Tony’s shirt. The silky material felt wonderful against his fingers, but he really wanted to see _Tony_. As soon as he could, he dipped his hands beneath the fabric and splayed his hands over Tony’s ribs.

And stopped. Tony was wearing something else under the shirt. He looked down and saw a tight black half-shirt stretching over Tony’s chest. It ended just under his sternum, hiding everything from shoulder to abdominals.

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. I was planning to warn you,” Tony said, pulling away slightly. “It’s – I have a lot of scarring. From Afghanistan. It’s better if I leave that on.”

“I don’t care about your scars,” Bucky started, thinking of his own white and pink tapestry of a shoulder and chest.

Tony shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s just – flashbacks.”  Bucky understood as soon as the word was out of his mouth. “I want this to be a fun night. Probably best if you try not to touch it, either. At least not the front.”

“Course, Tones,” Bucky said, wrapping his arms around the smaller man. “Anything you need.”

“What I need is you in my bed. Right now,” Tony responded with a smirk, clearly uninterested in anything like a touching moment. He grabbed Bucky’s hand and started pulling him toward the bed.

“Like I said, doll, anything you need,” Bucky chuckled, following obediently.

Tony smiled like the cat who got the cream. “Well, I also need that shirt to be gone,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I like it. You can never wear it around me again, because the reaction’s just going to be Pavlovian, I swear, but I think it’s had enough of you. My turn.” He stopped at the edge of the bed and let go of Bucky’s hands, fingers already racing toward Bucky’s stomach and pushing the soft grey fabric up. Bucky pulled it over his head, giving Tony and unobstructed view of his torso.

The inventor’s clever hands danced over his abs and chest, tracing over the planes of his body tantalizingly. “Can I?” he asked, fingers hovering over the place where the metal met flesh.

“Go ahead,” Bucky told him. It had been ages since the arm or shoulder had hurt, and Bucky had Tony to thank for that.

Tony touched his shoulder reverently, spreading his hand over it and pressing just hard enough that Bucky could feel him through the artificial nerves. He moved his hands down, experimentally playing with the spaces where the plates met, running his fingers over them.

That theoretically shouldn’t have done much for him, but apparently the nerves were the most sensitive there. Bucky hissed in surprise, and his arm whirred mechanically as the plates and servos beneath rearranged themselves.

“Like that?” Tony asked archly.

“ _God_ ,” Bucky groaned, because Steve had never _ever_ tried that before. If anything, Steve kept a respectful distance from the arm during sex. “Didn’t know I had that in me.”

“Learn something new every day,” Tony told him, running his fingers down to the inside of his elbow. He leaned down to kiss the plates on his wrist, then ran his tongue up where a flesh arm would have veins. It wasn’t quite as sensitive as his right arm, but the feel still went straight to his dick.

“Didn’t think you’d be interested in that,” Bucky admitted.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Have you met me?” he asked.

Bucky mirrored his expression.

 “I mean, you can rest assured I did not _just_ say yes to you to get my hand on this in a less-than clinical setting, but you’ve got to know how I feel about tech,” Tony continued. “Tech like this, attached to a body like yours? I didn’t have a chance.”

Bucky could work with that. He reached out under Tony’s shirt and wrapped his metal arm around Tony’s waist, using it to bodily pull him close. The metal of his hand was directly on the small of Tony’s back, and the inventor could feel the whole arm as it wrapped around him.

Bucky was rewarded with a gasp – an intoxicating sound – and with Tony reaching out to wrap his hands around his shoulders, looking a little desperate. Bucky bent down to start making out with him again, holding the inventor in place with his arm while he rubbed against him with the rest of his body.

“Bed,” Tony said, pulling away and falling back onto the ridiculously large mattress. He shrugged off the rest of his shirt sprawled out haphazardly, wiggling his eyebrows at the super soldier. “Way more comfortable down here.”

Bucky laughed at him. “You’re ridiculous,” he said, toeing off his socks and shoes before dropping down onto the bed and pulling Tony on top of him as he rolled onto his back.

“I’m fun,” Tony informed him. “I’ve yet you have any complaints.”

A flare of jealousy rushed through Bucky before he could tamp it down. It didn’t matter to him that Tony had slept with so many people – but he hated knowing he would sleep with so many more after him. That he was just on in a long line of lovers. “Far be it from me to be the first,” he said, trying not to let any negative emotion show.

Tony leaned down and started kissing him again, giving only a moment’s attention to his lips before making his way down his neck, biting and licking his way down to his chest.

When he found a nipple, it was all Bucky could do to hold on any groan his name. “Tony!”

Tony lifted his head and smiled up at him impishly. “Yes?”

“You’re driving me crazy, doll,” Bucky admitted, brushing his hand through Tony’s dark hair.

“Kinda the point, isn’t it?” Tony teased.

Bucky let his hand fall to trace over Tony’s cheek. “Wanna give me a chance to return the favor?”

“Not yet,” Tony told him. He lowered his head and continued his way down, playing with Bucky’s belt as he did. “Can we lose the pants?” he asked.

“Please,” Bucky replied. He ran his fingers over Tony’s shoulder and back as Tony made short work of his belt and pants. He pushed down pants and boxer briefs in one smooth move, and Bucky kicked them off.

“Yes,” Tony hissed, nuzzling Bucky’s thigh just where it met his hips. If Bucky hadn’t been hard already – and he most certainly had been – that alone would have gotten his attention. “Important question: does the super soldier thing effect your refractory period?”

“What?” Bucky asked, taken aback. “Yeah – it’s ah, maybe five minutes the first time? Longer after.”

Tony grinned up at him. If Bucky didn’t know any better, he’d call the expression evil. “In that case, can I suck you off?”

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky groaned. What else could he say when those dark eyes held him captive? The word was barely out of his mouth before the inventor had the head of his cock in his mouth.

Tony sucked cock like he was born for it. He was eager and inventive, sucking and licking in turn, then using one spit-slick hand to jack him off as he lavished his head with attention. His eyes were closed, oblivious to the rest of the world and looking blissful as he worked. Bucky grasped the sheets beside him, holding on for dear life as he looked down and watched.

“Tony,” Bucky moaned. “Tones, I’m gonna –”

“Come on,” Tony said, lifting his head just over Bucky’s cock. “Come for me, Bucky. I’m starving for it.”

Bucky flexed his abs, doing his level best to keep his hips on the bed instead of thrusting into Tony’s mouth, and let out a guttural cry as he came.

To his surprise, Tony pursed his lips over the head of his cock, swallowing down every drop.

As soon as he regained feeling, Bucky reached down and pulled Tony back up so he was chest-to-chest with him. He kissed him desperately, needing to feel closer to this amazing man. His hands brushed through his hair and over his face, pulling him impossibly closer.

“Hey big guy,” Tony said, pulling apart just enough to rest his forehead on Bucky’s.

“You’re amazing,” Bucky breathed, not sure what else to say – what else he was allowed to say here, naked and exposed in front of this man. “You’re perfect.”

Tony smiled at him, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So, five minutes?”

“Maybe less,” Bucky told him, already feeling himself react to feeling Tony’s hard cock rubbing against his stomach.

“Enough time to prep me?” Tony asked, looking down at Bucky’s left arm. The request took him by surprise.

“I was –“ Bucky started, not sure if he should. This was well within the rules, but he wasn’t sure how Tony would react. Then again, this was going to be his only chance to try this. “I was kind of hoping you’d be prepping me, dollface.”

Tony’s expressive face flashed in surprise. “You were?”

“If you want,” Bucky told him. “I’m good either way, but I really want to try this. With you.”

Tony smiled down to him. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I definitely want.”

Bucky pulled him down for another deep kiss.

Tony pushed up and away from him far too quickly. “Just a sec,” he said when Bucky reached up to wrap his arms around him again. “Let me grab the lube and a condom.”

“We don’t –“ Bucky started. “I mean, super soldier. I can’t catch or transmit anything. If you don’t want –?”

Tony shook his head. “Sorry, soldier, but I’m gonna wrap it up tonight,” he said. Bucky tried to ignore the somewhat haunted look in his eyes – but only because Tony was clearly trying to hide it.

He nodded. “Whatever you want, doll,” he said, reaching out and running his fingers over Tony’s abs, just below the black half-shirt. Who knew the inventor would be so built under those executive suits and tee-shirts he favored? He unbuckled Tony’s slacks, then pushed them down his legs. The inventor had foregone underwear, and damn if that wasn’t a kink Bucky didn’t know he had.

Tony slicked his fingers with lube, then used his other hand to push Bucky’s legs up and give himself plenty of space to maneuver. Never one to just sit back and let his partner do the work, Bucky put his left leg over Tony’s shoulder, still reaching out to playfully touch and tickle Tony’s skin.

“Keep that up and I’m not gonna be able to finish this,” Tony warned him, turning his head to kiss Bucky’s ankle. He started kissing up his calf, distracting him before he pushed in his first finger.

“That would be terrible,” Bucky said – he meant for the words to come out deadpan, but they twisted toward sincerity in his mouth. “Yeah, Tones, right there.”

Tony bit at his calf teasingly as he twisted his finger, reaching in to prod at Bucky’s prostate. He used his other hand to scratch up the inside of Bucky’s thigh, driving him even crazier.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Bucky,” Tony told him. “Not gonna do anything unless you ask for it first.”

“More,” Bucky told him, pressing down against his finger. “Give me another, please.”

Tony pulled out just long enough to add some lube to his hands before pressing two fingers in. He twisted and scissored, stretching Bucky further, as he continued to kiss and bite at his ankle and calf.

“Damn your fingers, Tones,” Bucky moaned, mouth completely out of control. Steve was the only one who had ever done this to him before, and it had always been perfunctory and businesslike: preparation, and not a main event in and of itself. Tony, though – Tony was an artist. “Where the hell did you learn that? That’s – Christ, yes!”

“Like that?” Tony asked archly. “What do you think, soldier? Want another?”

“Want you,” Bucky moaned.

“Well since I’m not gonna fuck you until you’re properly stretched, should I take that as a yes?” the inventor teased.

“Yes,” Bucky moaned. “I swear to god, Tony, if you don’t –“

Tony interrupted his threat by pressing in a third finger, reducing Bucky’s words to a throaty groan. He threw his head back against the pillows, eyes closed as he concentrated on the exquisite feel of Tony’s fingers.

“Just let me know when you’re ready,” Tony said in a far too innocent voice.

“I’m ready,” Bucky managed, opening his eyes and squinting at Tony. The other man was smiling widely, watching him as he lost absolutely all control under his ministrations. “Now.”

“Hmmmm….Just a minute,” Tony said calmly, still twisting and stretching in Bucky. “Let me have my fun.”

“Please,” Bucky begged.

Apparently, begging was a turn-on for his mechanic.

“Yeah,” Tony said, eyes going dark with more pronounced desire. “Yeah, alright.” He rolled the condom on. “How do you want to do this?”

“Like this,” Bucky said, raising the other leg so it was over Tony’s other shoulder. “Face to face.”

Tony took a deep breath, looking down as if he were steadying himself. Bucky knew exactly how he felt. “Alright.”

He lined himself up, then took hold of Bucky’s hips.

“Please, Tones,” Bucky plead.

Tony closed his eyes and pushed forward, pressing into Bucky slowly. Bucky was stretched enough to take him, but not so much that he didn’t feel the deep stretch of finally being fucked. “Yes,” he moaned as Tony bottomed out, balls deep. “Come on, Tony, move for me, doll.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, started to thrust slowly.

“Don’t gotta hold back,” Bucky told him. “C’mon, faster, please.”

“Let me enjoy this,” Tony said. “I only get this once – I want to take my time.”

Bucky’s heart clenched and he closed his eyes. They’d only ever get this once. As much as Bucky loved Steve – wanted him forever – that broke his heart. “Then make it count, doll,” he breathed, reaching down to trace nonsense patterns over Tony’s sides.

Tony snapped his hips into him at the endearment, then started a fast, deep rhythm. If was demanding, needy, _perfect._ Bucky opened his eyes, immediately making eye contact with Tony.

 “I’m gonna – “ Bucky groaned, staring at those deep brown eyes.

“Yeah, me too,” Tony said. He wrapped his still-slick fingers around Bucky’s cock, twisting as he jerked him off.

Bucky’s eyes snapped shut again on their own accord, and he forced his hands down onto the sheets, grabbing them instead of Tony’s hips in a death grip. He all but howled as he came again, all over Tony’s hand and his own stomach.

And then Tony was coming: buried deep in him, with both hands up on Bucky’s legs, pulling him close. Bucky watched as his face screwed up in ecstasy, completely lost to the moment.

When Bucky moved his legs back down, Tony pulled out of him and collapsed bonelessly onto his chest. He was breathless, his eyes dilated and his mind clearly shut off, at least for the moment.

“Christ, look at you, Tony,” Bucky said reverently, running one hand through Tony’s hair as the other arm came around his back to hold him close. “You’re like something out a fucking dream – too damn perfect for words. How’d I wind up in your bed?”

“You asked,” Tony panted.

“You said yes,” Bucky reminded him.  “Gotta think that means something,”

Tony nuzzled into his chest, kissing the skin there instead of answering. Now that Bucky thought about it, he realized he'd never seen someone in the tower with Tony, for all his playboy status.

 Maybe it did mean something. The thought made Bucky's chest hurt. He pulled Tony closer with his metal arm and bit his lip to prevent himself from saying anything stupid. He and Steve had rules about how this would turn out, after all. He couldn’t keep him, not if he wanted to keep Steve – who he loved; who he needed like oxygen.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Bucky holding Tony and carding his fingers through his hair, and Tony lying on Bucky, switching between kissing his chest and neck and collapsing blissed out on top of him. Bucky would have fallen asleep like that, woke up for another round in an hour or two, but Tony sat up too soon.

“I'm gonna take a shower,” he said, pulling off the condom. Bucky opened his mouth to ask if he wanted company, but he continued before Bucky could form the words.  “Is Captain Rogers waiting for you downstairs?”

He wasn't - Steve expected to see him in the morning - but Bucky could recognize a dismissal when he heard one. More than that, he could clearly read the regret in Tony's eyes.

“Yeah,” he lied. And he couldn't just leave it like that. “Thank you,” he continued. “That was, well, unforgettable.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, a little sadly. “It was great.”

Bucky watched as the other man made his way to the bathroom, shoulders a little too high and spine too straight. He bit his tongue, lest the treacherous thing call Tony back.

What was he going to do? Now that he had had Tony – now that he recognized just how deep his feelings for him ran – how was he possibly going to make their friendship work?

He shook his head as he started to gather his clothes. He had made a terrible mistake.

 

…

 

Tony stood in the shower for a long time after he was clean, letting the hot water stream down his back.

“What am I doing?” he muttered to himself, running his hands through his hair. Bucky was still in his room – still _right there_ , probably already up and ready for another round, and Tony was here, alone.

“I can’t go back in there,” he said aloud to convince himself. “He’s probably gone anyway.”

“Sir, Sergeant Barnes is still in your room, collecting his clothes,” JARVIS told him, voice pitched low. “I predict that you have approximately two minutes before he deems himself decent enough to leave. You have plenty of time to complete your shower and join him.”

“Thanks, J,” Tony said sarcastically. “Not helping. Not at all.”

“My apologies, sir,” JARVIS replied primly.

Tony ignored his AI. He knew JARVIS just wanted him happy. It was in his programming to take care of Tony, and although Tony hadn’t intended that to include butting into his relationships, he would never fetter the AI’s learning.

Tony closed his eyes. He wanted to go out there _so bad_ – to curl up in the bed next to Bucky. To get him to stretch Tony out with those delicious metal fingers, to fuck him through the mattress. Hell, he wanted him here, fucking him against the cool tile of the shower as hot water rained down on him.

He wanted to fall asleep on that broad chest, surrounded by Bucky’s arms as the soldier whispered endearments to him and played with his hair, as he almost had after he had come. He wanted it _so bad._

Which was why he had ended the night early.

Bucky was _Steve’s._ And Steve was Bucky’s. They were perfect for each other.

There was no room between them for an ex-arms dealer with a bad heart and a worse reputation. There was no room in a relationship for a secret like Iron Man, and there was no place on the Avengers for a man like Tony Stark.

“Is he still up here, JARVIS?” Tony asked wearily.

“Sergeant Barnes is in the elevator, on his way back to his own suite,” JARVIS informed him coldly.

Tony shut off the water and grabbed for a towel.

He’d had what was allowed. Letting himself get caught up in it – pretending it was something more – was only going to make it that much worse for him later on.

God only knew how he was going to survive after his night with Steve. He almost regretted saying yes to both super soldiers.

Almost. Even knowing how alone he’d feel after, he was still sure it would be worth it.

 

…

 

Steve was already asleep when Bucky got back to their suite, and Bucky didn’t think it was fair to try to wake him up. Instead, he took a quick shower, slipped on a pair of boxers, and settled into bed as quietly as he could. It took him a long time to fall asleep; he couldn’t stop thinking about Tony, and how much he affected him.

Eventually, he shifted close to Steve, cuddling into his shoulder. The familiar scent and feel of his partner grounded him, letting him fall asleep.

In the morning, he woke up with Steve’s arms around him, holding him to his chest.

“Morning,” Bucky said sleepily. He looked at the clock. “Skipping your morning run?”

“You’re here,” Steve said, voice sweet and a little giddy. “I didn’t think you’d be here when I woke up, but you were.”

“And so you’re skipping your morning routine to cuddle me? You sap,” Bucky teased.

“Mmm,” Steve agreed, bending his neck to kiss Bucky’s hair.

“Love you,” Bucky said into Steve’s chest.

“Love you, too, Buck,” Steve said, voice muffled because his nose was still buried in his hair.

It felt good, right hearing those words from Steve. It was everything to him – always had been. So why was he still thinking about Tony?

Should he tell Steve everything now? “Do you want to hear –?”

“Not yet,” Steve told him. “Unless you need to. I’d rather wait til we both have our nights. You’re still ok with me –?”

“Of course!” Bucky told him, the answer coming automatically and effortlessly. “You wanted this to begin with. And last night – it was interesting, but it didn’t make me feel any different about you. That’s all that matters to me: you and me.”

Steve nuzzled down the side of Bucky’s forehead, toward his ear. “Me, too,” he said. “Come on, let’s go get some breakfast and make out on the balcony.”

“Think I saw some paparazzi in the hotel down the block earlier this week,” Bucky told him. The sniper in him never stopped noticing those things. “The communal kitchen? If we hurry, we can scandalize Sam before _his_ morning run.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, ok,” he agreed, because he would agree to almost anything for Bucky. Especially if he knew it would make Bucky laugh. He pulled away and got out of bed, stretching.

Bucky laid back and watched him for a moment. He didn’t know what he was going to do about Tony, but god was he glad to have Steve. He didn’t need anything else in the world, as long as he had him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve & Iron Man have their one night stand. And a bit of angst.

Steve and Iron Man set up a date that same week. They waited until Friday, when Bucky was going to be out with Clint and Sam anyway, having the kind of ‘bro time’ that Steve usually didn’t enjoy anyway.

Steve spent most of the day in the gym. While Bucky paced and focused on his weapons when he was nervous, Steve liked to punch things. Tony Stark had provided the only super soldier-proof punching bags Steve had ever encountered, and Steve was happy to test their limits for him.

He was nervous. He had never done anything like this with anyone buck Bucky before. Sure, there had been a handful of dames he’d kissed back in his day, but they were few and far between, and he’d never kissed any of them more than once. Even Peggy, who had been his best friend, and who he might have married in another life, had only kissed him the one time.

Now he was about to have sex with someone he couldn’t even kiss. Someone who’s face he would never know.

He was terrified.

This was Iron Man, though – his Shellhead. He trusted him with his life. He was the only one he would trust with this.

He thought of Bucky, who had not talked about his night with Tony (at Steve’s request), but who had clearly enjoyed it. Of Tony’s clever fingers on Bucky’s arm, calming the Winter Soldier down when he had first come here, soothing and then systematically eradicating the chronic pain the arm had caused him. Of the hours he had spent upgrading weapons and armor, doing his best to ensure that none of the Avengers came to any harm on the battlefield. The way he took care of them all, wanting nothing for himself.

Maybe Iron Man wasn’t the only one he would trust, but he was his first choice. Armor or no.

“Hey there, Captain,” Natasha said, suddenly right next to him. It unnerved him, how easily she could sneak up even on someone with his enhanced senses. “Something eating you?”

“It’s nothing,” Steve said, punching the bag again. The seam split in the middle, tearing up and down the bag.

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” Nat told him carefully. “Wanna spar?”

Steve looked at his watch and shook his head. “I need to hit the showers. I’ve got a date in an hour.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “With Barnes? Isn’t he going out with the boys?”

Damnit. He had not meant to say that.

“Ah, no,” Steve told her, not sure if he should try to walk back his words or just explain it to her. She’d probably find out anyway. He and Bucky hadn’t said they’d keep this whole thing a secret or anything, but he didn’t really want it getting around to the whole team. “Can you keep a secret?”

The dry look she gave him spoke volumes.

“I know, master spy. You’re better at secrets than the rest of us combined,” Steve placated. What was wrong with his mouth today? “Could you please keep a secret for me? And Bucky?”

“Of course,” Natasha told him, tone still a little frosty.

“Bucky and I are kind of experimenting. A little. Outside our relationship,” Steve confessed. “It’s my turn tonight.”

Natasha tilted her head. “Is that all, Cap?” she asked.

Steve nodded, a little taken aback by her response.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of the team, but from where I stand, you’re overthinking it. I wouldn’t beat myself up too much trying to keep it quiet,” Natasha told him. She smiled evilly. “If anyone gives you a hard time, let me know. I have blackmail material on everyone.”

Steve shook his head, trying to reign in any disapproving look. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Natasha told him. “I’ll tell Bucky, too. He’s more reasonable about these things.”

 _Please don’t_ , Steve thought. He didn’t say it – he knew she wouldn’t listen – but he was terrified at what the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow could do together if they thought someone slighted one of them. Even a teammate.

His worry must have shown on his face, because Natasha laughed at him. “We won’t scar anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” she said – and that was so not reassuring. “Go on, get out of here. Go shower.”

“I’ll see you later,” Steve told her. “Enjoy your workout.”

“Bye, Cap! Have fun!” she sing-songed.

Steve shook his head at her as he made his way out of the gym.

 

…

 

An hour later, Steve was on the roof, waiting for Iron Man to join him.  He lounged in one of the several wooden patio chairs Tony had bolted down around a gas fire pit when he realized how often Bucky and Clint both liked to hang out up here. The inventor had sniped the whole time about assassins with death wishes who kept uprooting his safety fences because they got in the way of sitting on the precipice, but he had a smile on his face. Nowadays, the whole team was likely to come up here on nice nights, drinking beers and roasting marshmallows as they watched Iron Man, Falcon, and occasionally Iron Patriot practice aerial maneuvers.

At least, that’s what they told the good citizens of New York. In reality, they were usually playing. Dancing.

Steve smiled at thought. It had taken a while to get here, but the Avengers were _happy_ , off the field at least. They were a good team, trusted each other (mostly), and were developing strong friendships. Steve hadn’t thought that would happen – hadn’t thought Bucky would slide into their lives as surely as if he’d been there for the Battle of New York – and he knew well enough not to take a day for granted. He thanked God for it every night.

He just wished Iron Man would come to trust them one day.

As if summoned by the thought, Iron Man made his presence suddenly knowns by the whine of his repulsors.  Steve looked up and saw him circling the tower. He did a little midair roll, followed by a backflip – and Steve realized he was showing off. _For him._

He settled back and enjoyed the show, watching as the mechanical marvel dove down in a controlled dive before coming back into view by corkscrewing around the tower. Once he cleared the roof by a few meters, he started blasting himself up with his repulsors before cutting the power and freefalling for a backflip, only to catch himself a meter down and repeat the maneuver.

“Showoff,” Steve admonished, shaking his head, though he was smiling. Iron Man in flight was _beautiful_.

 Iron Man looked down and saluted at Steve before doing one more aerial cartwheel, which had him landing gracefully on his feet right in front of the super soldier.

“That show for me, Shellhead?” Steve asked.

“What if it was?” Iron Man asked teasingly, walking over to stand beside Steve’s chair. His walk was all fluid grace, even in the armor. Steve had often noticed it before, but now, with the hum of anticipation, it seemed more pronounced.

Steve tilted his head and shrugged casually. “Might think you’re trying to get my attention.”

“Pretty sure I already have it, Captain.” And how was his voice so smooth and sensual even though the modulators? Steve shivered. “You wanna go down to my room? We could go to yours, but as much as I like your boy –”

“No, yours is good,” Steve agreed, standing up. He was relieved he didn’t have to ask. He didn’t want to do anything without Bucky in their shared bed.

Iron Man reached out and put one warm gauntlet-clad hand on his cheek. Steve leaned into it automatically. He had had a crush on Iron Man for some time, before even Bucky had come back, but he hadn’t ever thought he’d have this. His heart beat hard in his chest, betraying his nerves.

Iron Man tilted his head, as though he was about to say something, but then he just lowered his hand to take Steve’s and lead him to the elevator access.

Steve let himself be led, feeling ridiculous and shy – even though this had all been his idea – and glad to follow. Iron Man seemed so self-assured, so confident, and Steve had always trusted him in the field. Surely he could trust him to take the lead here.

Steve stood stiffly in the elevator, feet at parade rest and hands folded in front of him where he would have held his shield had he been in uniform.

“You’re nervous, Steve,” Iron Man observed.

“I’ve never don’t this before,” Steve admitted. “Not with anyone but Bucky. Have you?”

“Depends on what you mean,” Iron Man said. “Had a one night stand? Had sex in the armor?”

“Had sex with a man,” Steve clarified. God, he didn’t even know if Iron Man was into men when he had asked. What if he wasn’t? What if he was just doing this because they were friends, or because of who Steve was?

“Several,” Iron Man said, cutting off that train of thought before Steve could get lost in it. He continued easily. “More one night stands than I should probably admit to. Never had sex in the armor, though. I haven’t actually been with anyone in a while.”

Steve looked at the mask, knowing he couldn’t see any kind of emotion in it, but trying anyway. “Do you – I know you can’t answer, but I didn’t even know if you had a family somewhere like Clint when I asked you to do this. We’ve known each other for years, Shellhead, and there’s so much I don’t know about you.”

“Stop,” Iron Man told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Actually…” He did something with his right arm and the gauntlet slipped off, limply falling to his left hand. He put a solid, warm, human hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Stop,” he repeated. “You’re thinking too much. The point of tonight is not to think at all, right?”

Steve blushed. “I guess so,” he said.

“So relax and stop overthinking, Cap,” Iron man said. “I’m not seeing anyone else. I don’t have a secret family who you’ve never heard of. I am one hundred percent, enthusiastically on board with just about anything, and I am very vocal about my boundaries if we go anywhere I’m not comfortable with. You’ve got to trust me if we’re going to do this, Steve. At least trust that I’m going to say no to anything I don’t want, and I’ll trust you to do the same.”

“Okay,” Steve said, taking a breath. That made sense – as secretive as he was with his identity, Iron Man was always forthcoming with his opinions.  “Yeah.”

 The hand on his shoulder started massaging the muscle there, thumb rubbing suggestively up his neck. “Good.” Iron Man dropped his hand to Steve’s stomach, rubbing his fingers over his shirt. “God, I can’t wait to get you out of this.” It was weird, hearing so much raw emotion –raw _want_ through the voice modulator.

“Really?” Steve asked. The elevator came to a stop on the floor just below Steve’s, and Iron Man led him down into the empty hall.

“You think I would have said yes, otherwise?” Iron Man asked.

He let them into the last suite in the corridor. As soon as they were through the door, Iron Man closed it and pressed Steve up against the wall. His right hand was on Steve’s stomach again, this time beneath his shirt and touching his bare flesh. “You’re my best friend, Steve; I’d never want you to be uncomfortable. But of course I notice you. Of course I’m can’t wait to get my hands all over you. You’re the whole package.”

“Package?” Steve asked. He wondered if Iron Man noticed the tremble of his voice. He brought one hand up to trace the lines of Iron Man’s wrist, and wished there was more exposed skin for him to explore.

“Personality. Humor. Looks. Brains.” Iron Man explained. His hand traced up to Steve’s nipple, rolling it between two fingers briefly, then scratched down his side. Steve was hyperaware of it, more turned on by the minimal contact of those few digits than he thought possible. “How could I not jump at this chance?”

“You’re a sweet talker, aren’t you?” Steve asked, as if he didn’t already know.

“Guilty as charged,” Iron Man told him. “I thought you liked that about me.”

“I like a lot about you, Shellhead,” Steve told him, getting his feet under him a little. He was still blushing, but this felt like field banter, an easy volley back and forth with his wittiest teammate. It was so comfortable it was almost painful, knowing he’d never have this again.

“Glad to hear it,” Iron Man said, voice a bit softer than it had been a few seconds ago. “God, I wish I was kissing you right now.”

“Yeah?” Steve raised his hand to the suit’s interlocking abdominal plates. “Think we can get some more of this off?”

“Happily,” Iron Man said. He backed away from Steve and made his way to a weird little platform on the floor to the right of the door – a suit docking station, like the ones Tony had in his lab.

“Usually, I’d go for something a little sexier,” Iron Man confessed as the suit legs and bottom torso opened of their own accord. Gauntlets and arm pieces fell to the floor.

A surprisingly short man with a lithe frame and a dangerous gate walked out of the armor. He was still wearing the suit chest plate, shoulders and head, but there was enough of him on display for Steve’s blood to pool southward at the sight. Aside from the suit pieces, he was wearing only a pair of dark, tight jeans; his stomach and feet were bare.

Steve reached out to touch the sculpted muscles on his arms, and looked down to admire his lean, muscular torso. Steve had always had a thing for built men – it had been torture watching Bucky for all those years before they got together – and Iron Man fit that taste to a T.

“I think this is plenty sexy,” Steve told him, reveling in the tactile sensation of actually _touching_ this mysterious man.

“I aim to please,” Iron Man said. “So, any plans for me, Cap? You are the Man with the Plan, right?”

“Yeah, not the sexiest of memories,” Steve chided him, flashing back to 1942 for a moment.

Iron Man laughed. “Ok, noted. Avoid references to USO days if I want to get into the Captain’s pants,” he teased.  

“Good rule of thumb,” Steve agreed.

Iron Man started tracing up Steve’s wrists. “So what do you want? I want to make this a night to remember for you.”

Steve opened his mouth, then looked at Iron Man for a minute. Usually by now, Steve thought they would be kissing – necking. He might be tracing the other man’s ear with his tongue. But in the armor, he had no access to his mouth or neck. He couldn’t trace his hands over his chest or shoulders or even play with his nipples. He could certainly make this good for him, but he’d have to be creative.

He took Iron Man’s hand and brought his wrist up to his lips, He pressed a kiss into his pulse, then licked the area experimentally.

“Oh, god, keep that up and we’re gonna have a problem,” Iron Man told him with a groan.

Steve smiled and brought Iron Man’s hand to his lips. His fingers were well manicured, but calloused and scarred. Steve took a moment to admire them before slipping two fingers into his mouth and sucking suggestively.

“Definitely a problem,” Iron Man said. “Who knew you’d have a mouth like that on you?”

Steve slipped the fingers out of his mouth, twirling his tongue around them as they slipped past his lips. “Bedroom?” he asked.

“If you’re gonna put your mouth to work like that, I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Iron Man promised.

“Hmmm, I’d love to put my mouth to work on you,” Steve hummed, keeping a hold of Iron Man’s wrist and tracing his fingers down the veins as he followed him down the hall. “Think you have more than one in you? Cause I’d really like it if I could do that and then – ah – if you took top afterwards,” he said, confidence failing him on the last words.

Iron Man turned around, one hand still on the doorknob, and from the stock-still way he held himself, Steve knew he was surprised. “Didn’t think of you as a bottom, Cap,” the other man said after a moment. “I’m happy to oblige. Seriously, whatever you want. But just to be safe, let’s plan for just one round for the mere mortal.”

Steve blushed again. Damn it, Buck would have a field day teasing him, with him acting so green. “More of a switch,” he admitted. “But if it’s all the same, I – ah, I’d rather not top if I can’t see your face. It’d kill me if I hurt you ’cause I couldn’t read you in time.”

“I’m a big boy, Cap,” Iron Man reminded him. “I can –”

“I know you can,” Steve said, putting a hand on Iron Man’s bicep, right under the edge of the armor. “But I don’t want you to have to. Please?”

Iron Man shook his head. “When you ask like that…” he started, and from his posture, Steve imagined him winking under the face plate. It was amazing how expressive his body was, now that it was revealed. “Not that I need much convincing.”

He opened the bedroom door and let them in.

The bedroom itself seemed much more lived in than the rest of the apartment. It sported a huge bed – bigger than Steve and Bucky’s – with a dark blue comforter. There were no personal pictures or other identifying decorations, but the place was far from sterile.  Several pictures of the team were set up on top of the mahogany dresser beside a few pictures of Stark Industries employees. Steve noted a few conspicuously open areas, indicating that Iron Man had put away more recognizable pictures.

There was technological brick-a-brac on most hard surfaces: bits of wiring and pieces of the armor, two tablets and a couple of what looked like kinesthetic puzzles. It made sense, Steve supposed, for someone who wore a mechanical suit of armor for a living to be so interested in technology.

 “Shirt, off,” Iron Man said, hands pushing Steve’s shirt up and distracting him from his surroundings. Steve happily complied, then let himself be pushed down onto the bed.

Iron Man crawled on top of him, hands hungrily travelling up and down his abdomen and chest. Clever fingers tweaked a nipple before moving up to trace his collarbone.

And that wouldn’t do. Bad enough that Iron Man would be doing most of the work for the main event. Steve wanted his chance to play _now_. He reached up and grabbed him by the ribs, then flipped them over so Steve was on top.

“Wow,” Iron Man spluttered. “Not that I didn’t know how strong you were – hell, I think you could probably do that with the full suit on – but I did _not_ expect that to be so sexy. Who knew being manhandled by a super soldier could be such a turn on? Wait – scratch that – pretty sure at least half of America has already figured that out.”

“You really want to talk about the rest of America right now?” Steve asked, leaning down to kiss and nip down Iron Man’s stomach. He opened Iron Man’s jeans, and was pleasantly surprised to find absolutely nothing but skin beneath them.

“Thought you liked my mouth, honeybun,” Iron Man teased, then gasped as Steve reached in and freed his dick.

“I do,” Steve told him, looking him up and down. He was never going to get a chance to do this again, and he’d hate himself if he didn’t at least taste. “Think I’d like to shut you up more.” He opened his mouth and sucked at the head of Iron Man’s dick, teasing enough to get him riled up, but not so much that he would get anything like satisfaction from it.

“Oh – oh, god, what was I saying before about your mouth? And working? Because it’s amazing. You should never stop that,” Iron Man told him, voice intoxicatingly desperate.

Steve lifted his head, staying close enough to breathe on him. “You sure about that? I can keep going, but then you’re not gonna get inside me.” He lowered himself down to take him in again.

“Oh fuck,” Iron Man said. If his mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, Steve would have chided him for the language, just to get a rise out of him. “Alright, time to get this show on the road,” he gasped out, putting both hands on Steve’s shoulders and pulling him up. “You, stay there,” he ordered, slipping out from under him and moving away to grab supplies from his nightstand.

Steve obliged, grabbing a pillow to put under his hips, then stretching out languidly over the length of the bed, giving Iron Man a bit of a show as he went to work.

Apparently, he liked that. Iron Man sounded wrecked as he prepped Steve, one finger at a time. “God, I don’t know why you chose _me_ , Steve. Anyone else would be worshipping you right now. I want my lips, my tongue all over you: tracing down your neck, on your nipples – I they’re so sensitive, I bet you love having them bitten, don’t you? – on your cock. I’d give you the best blow job of my life, get you all comfortable and relaxed, make this even better for you.”

Steve felt like his could come from the other man’s heated babbling alone. “Don’t care,” Steve said, wishing he could ask him to just take the armor off and _show him_. But that would be a dick move here of all places.  “Wanted you.”

“Well, you’ve got me,” Iron Man said, giving him another finger and twisting.  “However you want me. You want this, or do you have another position in mind? Want to ride me? Or lay out on your back, ankles over my shoulders?”

“All of it,” Steve said, voice breaking as Iron Man hit his prostate. “Ah – whatever you want.”

“On your back it is,” Iron Man told him. “I want to see you – all of you as you come.”

“I’m ready,” Steve said, even though he knew he was still a little tight. He wanted – needed – Iron Man in him _now_.

“Ah, ah, ah, not yet,” Iron Man said. He twisted his fingers again. “Super soldier or not, you’re not ready until you’re nice and loose for me.”

“I can handle it, Shellhead,” Steve persisted. “Just want you. _Please._ ”

Iron Man added another finger, making Steve gasp in surprise. “Begging? You know how to push my buttons already, don’t you?”

“ _Please_ ,” Steve repeated, unashamed to take advantage if it would just get Iron Man in him faster. “Need you, not your fingers.”

“How am I supposed to argue with that?” Iron Man said, half to himself. As soon as he pulled his fingers away, Steve was on his back, hips under the pillow and knees all the way up by his shoulders, opening himself up.

“Jeeze, Cap, you can’t _do_ that to a man,” Iron Man breathed out, watching him. “The way you move, you look all open and needy for me – how are you even real?” He slowly rolled on a condom, took a deep breath, lined himself up, and started pressing into Steve.

Steve breathed through it, letting Iron Man fill him up. He wasn’t as thick as Bucky, but he was longer. Steve liked the deep stretch of him, thought he could get used to being filled so deep. He put his hands on Iron Man’s abs and looked up at the passive mask of the suit. “Talk to me, Shellhead. Let me know you’re in there.”

“God Steve,” Iron Man said, voice wrecked as he bottomed out. “You’re prefect, you know that? Feel so perfect.” He reached down and pulled Steve’s ankles up to the shoulder plates one at a time.

He pulled out experimentally, and Steve moved with him. “Come on, move for me,” Steve urged.

That was enough for Iron Man. He found his rhythm quickly, thrusting into Steve feverishly.  He turned his head to the right, looking at Steve’s ankle for a moment before turning back. “Want my mouth on you so bad,” he confessed. “Shoulda put a blindfold on you, stayed silent so I could kiss you.”

“I like it when you talk to me,” Steve told him. “Think I like it almost as much as I like this.”

“Gonna come for me while I talk?” Iron Man asked reaching down and starting to jerk Steve off in time to his rhythm. “You look delicious there. Really wish I could have had my mouth on this – could have blown you first, eaten you out before I stretched you.” Steve moaned embarrassingly loud at the words; he had never – _Bucky_ would never – but the thought was damn sexy. “You like that? Like the idea of my tongue in you? Then my dick, filling you up after?”

“Ah – I’m gonna –“ Steve warned, reaching up with one hand to grab the armor shoulder plate. He wanted to pull Iron Man closer, but he lost that thought as stars exploded through his body. He cried out, completely losing control.

Iron Man jerked him through his orgasm, letting hot, wet spunk cover both their chests and stomachs in trails. He didn’t seem to notice that some got on the armor’s chest plate, speckling the pure blue of the arc reactor. Instead that implacable helmet kept its eyes on Steve, seemingly mesmerized by him.

“God, _look_ at you,” Iron Man moaned, picking up his rhythm. Both hands were on Steve’s legs, hanging on for dear life as he fucked him. “Tell me if you need a break,” he said, but from the sound of his voice, Steve wasn’t sure if he was capable of stopping.

“Come on, come for me,” Steve panted instead. “Fill me up.”

Iron Man came brilliantly, shouting Steve’s name and a letting out a long, feral growl that seemed even more intense through the modulators.  

As soon as he was spent, he collapsed onto Steve, armor and all. Good for them, Steve could take the extra weight easily. He brought his arms up, holding the other man close to him. It wasn’t enough – he wanted Iron Man _out_ of the armor, to be able to see and feel him with nothing between them – but he would take what he could get.

It only took a minute for Iron Man to catch his breath. He tried to get up, but Steve held him fast. “Stay,” Steve said, voice a little wobbly and very breathy. “That was amazing.”

“Of course you’d be a cuddler,” Iron Man said, almost to himself. There was an odd note in his voice that Steve couldn’t identify.

“Had to have expected that, Shellhead,” Steve said. He was feeling goofy, sated. Happy. He leaned up and kissed the crown of the armor. It was warm, if smooth and unyielding beneath his lips.

“Steve,” Iron Man whined – yes whined. Steve bit back a chuckle. “We’re gross. At least let me get a towel or something to clean us up.”

“Just give me a minute,” Steve said lazily, running one hand down Iron Man’s side while the other kept them locked in place. “Like being here with you. Like being able to _touch_ you.”

“Alright,” Iron Man yielded. “Just for a few minutes.” He relaxed down onto Steve, chest plate on his stomach and helm on his sternum.

Steve smiled, knowing he won, and continued his lazy exploration of Iron Man’s skin, trying to memorize it by touch. God only knew every other moment of this evening would be burned into his memory.

If memories were all he got, he’d have to be happy with that.

 

…

 

Tony sat in his workshop later that night, mark X torso sitting on a stand in front of him. He was shirtless, fresh out of the armor. The arc reactor was glowing bright, as he was wearing only the dark jeans he had put on that afternoon.

Cap had finally left his room just a half hour prior, after insisting on what felt like a marathon cuddle session. Tony hadn’t been ready for that: hadn’t been ready for the feel of Steve holding him close, petting him like a lover instead of a casual sex partner. He had tried to escape like he had with Bucky, but Steve would hear nothing of it. He was so insistent, so sincere, Tony’s post-orgasm reptile brain almost mistook it for something like love.

“Dum-E, be a good boy and make me a pot of coffee, will you?” he asked, resolving not to sleep tonight. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of nightmares or dreams of the Brooklyn Boys. God knew he had had enough dreams of Bucky in the days since their tryst, and it was only going to get worse now that he’d had both of them.

The armor was a wreck. Besides being covered in super soldier semen – and how lucky was Steve that Tony was an engineer and not a biologist, because that was both gross and intriguing – the shoulder plate had four finger-sized dents. He didn’t know if he could bring himself to repair it.

The image flashed through his mind: _Steve reaching out for him, crying out in pleasure as he came, one hand on Tony’s shoulder and the other buried in the sheets. He was oblivious to the crunch of metal beneath his fingers. He was out of control because of Tony: because of his words, his touch._

Tony brushed the memory away. Much as he’d love to revel in it, he knew nothing good would come of it. He had had his single taste of both Bucky and Steve, and now they were off limits again.

 And what kind of person did that make him? Someone who would not only sleep with the fully informed, willing half of a couple, but then also sleep with the other half, who had no idea who he was? It was dishonest at best – disgusting at worst. What would they think of him if they ever found out who was under that armor?

“Exactly what the rest of the team would think,” he muttered to himself, staring at the suit. It was exactly what Natasha had put in her report, ironically unaware of their shared identity. “Iron Man, yes. Tony Stark, no. Only I guess that would mean Iron Man, no.”

 Dum-E chose that moment to come over, carrying an overfull, sloshing cup of coffee.

“Hey, here, give me that,” Tony said gently, taking the cup from his pinchers. The coffee smelled wonderful, but he knew better than to trust it. “JARVIS?”

Dum-E put his pinchers in Tony’s lap, apparently picking up on his mood. Tony stroked his support arm as JARVIS answered.

“Your coffee is uncontaminated, Sir, and safe for human consumption. It appears Dum-E is best at making you drinks when you need them the least.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked.

“Only that you’ve been up for the past twenty hours, and coffee will inevitably keep you up longer. Optimal human functioning requires eight hours of sleep for every twenty-four,” JARVIS reminded him.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I have work to do.” He looked down at the bot in his lap. “This is why you’re my favorite,” he said with a wink. “Come on now, clean the coffee from the floor. And while you’re at it, get this armor to decontamination. I have work to do.”

“If I may, Sir. If you truly had a favorite AI among us, I doubt that would be the one cleaning the remnants of tonight’s activities from your armor,” JARVIS chimed in.

“Cheeky, J,” Tony chided. He stood up and started sorting through his workbench, trying to find something that could keep him occupied for a few hours – or days, possibly. “Maybe I should make you autopilot Mark 40 and do it instead.”

The AI made a noise similar to a harrumph, but Tony pretended not to hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a few people asked why I chose to write this with the armor instead of with a blindfold or something. I hope I answered that in-story, but most of the reason was because I wanted the chapter of writing something really sexy while Tony was compromised. What did you think?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky talk through their emotions, then the other Avengers start to make their opinions known.

Steve went straight back to his room after leaving Iron Man’s. He needed a shower and a meal, in that order.

Bucky was supposed to be out all night, so he wasn’t surprised to have the suite to himself when he pulled off his shirt and hopped into the shower.

He wondered, as he soaped himself up, what it would be like to share a shower with Iron Man: to see him strip off his armor, let Steve wash his back, massage his scalp with shampoo…

Even in his fantasy he couldn’t picture the man’s face. He couldn’t see what color his hair might be, or his eyes, but he felt what it would feel so see him smile up at Steve like a shiver down his spine. Steve wished –

Steve tried to cut off that train of thought before it started, but he couldn’t quite put out of his mind just how _right_ it had felt to hold Iron Man in his arms. Almost as right as Bucky felt.

He switched the water to cold and finished his shower as quickly as he could.

Bucky was on the bed when he got out, still dressed in his jeans and dark henley but lying with his left hand thrown over his eyes.

“Before you say anything, I’m sorry,” the other super soldier said, voice saturated with guilt.

“What did you do?” Steve asked dryly as he dried his hair, wearing only a pair of long boxer briefs. As often as not, Bucky’s guilt these days was wildly misplaced, and he apologized for things Steve would barely notice. Steve hoped it was one of those moments.

It was not.

“I might have let news of our experiment slip to Sam and Clint,” Bucky said, and Steve cringed.

“I thought we agreed this was our business, Buck,” Steve said.

“I know. I _know_ ,” Bucky said, sitting up and finally meeting Steve’s eyes.  “I didn’t tell them who, or when, or anything like that. But they were teasing me about being an old man with 40’s virtue or some shit, and I don’t know. One minute I was scowling at them, and the next minute the damage was done.”

“Really, Buck? Because of some ribbing?” Steve asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He sighed, trying not to give in to his temper. “At least you didn’t really tell them anything important.”

“No, at least I could do that much,” Bucky agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Steve told him with a heavy sigh. “I mean, I’m not happy about it, but it happened. Nothing to do about it now.” He put a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“They were more jealous than anything,” Bucky told him with a wry smile, rearranging himself to sit beside Steve on the edge of the bed. “Especially Sam. Told me it’s bad enough the two of us attract all the attention we do, without having to go and be actual competition.”

Steve chuckled. “Serves them right for making assumptions,” he said. He could understand Bucky’s frustration with them. He was just as frustrated when people made assumptions about him because he was Captain America or because he came from a different time – especially the homophobes and social conservatives who had tried to pull him into their cause when he first came out of the ice. As if being born in 1920 meant he was somehow one of them.

“How did it go tonight?” Bucky asked after a quiet moment.

“I’m beginning to think this whole thing was a mistake,” Steve said, looking down. He still couldn’t get the sight of Iron Man’s skin under his fingers out of his mind.

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.

“I mean, I know it was just supposed to be fun – an experience neither of us have had before – but I think – I think I have feelings for him?” Steve said, every muscle in his body taught. How could he possibly be saying this to Bucky – his Bucky, who he would never leave for the world? “Not like you,” he clarified. “Never like with you – I love you – but it’s there.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said quietly. “Me, too.”

Steve turned and looked at him in shock. “You too?”

Bucky was looking down, long hair shielding his face from view. He leaned over and pressed his shoulder against Steve’s, then laid his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I love you,” he said, voice sounding almost as lost as when he came back to them.

Steve put an arm around him, then tipped back so they were lying on the bed, legs hanging off. He pulled Bucky in so that his head was on his chest.

“Tyrant,” Bucky teased weakly, though he bonelessly let Steve arrange him comfortably.

“You like it,” Steve teased back before planting a kiss in his hair.

“What are we gonna do, Stevie?” Bucky asked hollowly. Steve recognized that voice from when Bucky had first come to the tower, too: he was looking for orders. Direction.

Steve did his best to avoid indulging that tone; the therapists had said that Bucky needed gentle support to make his own decisions when he got in that mindset. So he asked, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said.

Steve waited patiently, letting his love sort through his thoughts and emotions without interruption. Eventually, Bucky would break the silence on his own.

It didn’t take long for Bucky to continue tentatively. “I want both of you. But I need you. What do we do with that?”

“We figure it out. Like we always do,” Steve told him, putting his other arm around him and pulling Bucky into a tight hug. He kissed Bucky’s hair again.

Finally, Bucky started to assert his own strength against Steve, pushing up so they were face to face. “Do we have to figure it out now?” he asked. “I kinda just want to kiss you, punk.”

Steve laughed. “Why am I gonna let you kiss me with a mouth like that?”

“Cause you like it,” Bucky told him, smirking. He lowered his head to let a sweet kiss juxtapose against his words.

Like always, kissing Bucky felt like coming home. Steve had missed the deep connection of lips meeting lips all night, and he found himself pulling Bucky down to deepen the kiss, starving for it. He ran his hands through Bucky’s hair, just shy of rough as he moaned into his lover’s mouth.

Bucky pulled away, hovering an inch over Steve. “Thought you’d be satisfied by now.”

“Couldn’t kiss all night,” Steve complained. “Not really up for anything else, but…?” He gave Bucky a shy, somewhat chagrined look.

Bucky chuckled at him. “So I get to fill in the gaps? You’re lucky I don’t have any pride at all when it comes to you.” He turned them so they were on this sides, facing each other, and this time Steve gave in to his direction.

“Lucky for a lot of things,” Steve agreed. “Kiss me again?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky said in the most put-upon voice. But he pulled Steve in with a hand on his cheek and kissed him slow and thorough, the way Steve liked it. Steve clung to him, wrapping arms and legs around him like an octopus. He let Bucky roll them over again so he was on his back, giving Bucky the leverage to push him down into the mattress as they made out messily.

  “So you gonna tell me about it?” Bucky asked eventually before moving on to kiss and nip at Steve’s neck.

“Like this?” Steve asked, caught between scandalized and turned on.

“Don’t hafta,” Bucky told him. “But it’d be hot, right? Comparing notes?”

Steve blushed as he thought about it. He wanted to share everything with Bucky – but on the other hand, there were moments he wanted to keep to himself: Iron Man’s words when he was coming in Steve, or the way he reacted to Steve’s kiss on his wrist. He wanted to hold onto those for himself, memorize them before he gave them to anyone else, even Bucky.

“Yeah, but not now,” he said. “I need to get some food in me before I’m up for anything else.”

Bucky pulled away and smirked down at him. “You’re so predictable, Rogers.”

“Yeah, like you’re not just as bad,” Steve said. He stood up as soon as Bucky rolled off him. “I assume I should make two sandwiches?”

“You’re dead to me you if you don’t,” Bucky told him.

Steve laughed.

 

…

 

Tony hid himself in his workshop for the next day. And the day after that.

There was just so much to do. Clint needed a new bow. He was working on a breathable bulletproof polymer mesh to wear under or incorporate into team uniforms. Rhodey’s Iron Patriot suit needed weapon upgrades and Red Wing’s AI infrastructure needed upgrading. Pepper wanted his signature on R&D plans for a low-output arc tech generator before the prototypes went to fabrication.

Steve wanted Tony to focus on more nonlethal weapons tech, and Bucky’s arm needed an upgrade to the neural uplink. Tony avoided those projects, as though it would allow him to avoid thinking about the two super soldiers altogether.

It didn’t work that way, of course. He couldn’t get them – either of them – out of his head. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt Steve’s impossibly strong arms around him, heard Bucky’s fond endearments, saw sets of bright and stormy blue eyes darken with lust.

“Sir, it has been approximately fifteen hours since you last ate, and thirty since you left the workshop,” Jarvis interrupted his train of thought. “The team is currently about to eat in the communal kitchen, if you would like to join them. Agent Barton has been working on his Bolognese for the past six hours.”

 “Not now, Jarvis,” Tony said, though his stomach growled at the thought of Clint’s food. Among the several excellent cooks in the tower, the archer was second only to Bucky. Not that Tony partook often. “Let me know when the kitchen’s clear, will you? I’ll scavenge from the leftovers.”

A moment passed before JARVIS replied. “I’ve taken the liberty to ask Agent Barton to put a plate aside for you,” the AI said, voice a perfect facsimile of innocence.

“No!” Tony said, though the damage was done now. “No, no, no. What did you not understand about the word scavenge? What did you not understand about waiting until the dining room was _empty?_ ”

“One of my primary program functions is to take care of you, Sir. If there were no leftovers to speak of, I calculated the probability of you making yourself a healthy meal instead of a smoothie and a pot of coffee to be exceedingly low, and, given your current rates of both food and coffee consumption, I could not allow that to happen,” JARVIS explained.

“You could not…” Tony muttered, going over the words in his head. “Damnit, JARVIS, are you kidding me? I’m rewriting your entire code for this. I’ll have you running on DOS, I swear. You know they’re just going to come down here and try to drag me up.”

“I’ve also taken the liberty of telling the team that you were in the middle of a delicate operation which could not be paused,” JARVIS continued, obnoxiously reasonable. “They seem to understand.”

“Fine,” Tony said, somewhat mollified. “You’re forgiven. But you’re on thin ice, you hear? One more trick like that and I’m scrapping you wholesale. We’re going all the way back to the drawing board.”

“I’m certain that I would be trembling if I could, Sir,” JARVIS said calmly. “In the meantime, would you like me to pull up the plan for the consumer energy prototypes?”

Tony attempted to lose himself in blueprints and specs for the next hour. Really, he did employ some really brilliant people – he only had to make moderate modifications to the work, not scrap them and start from scratch, which meant they were learning. But he was still only engaging about half his brain.

Just as he was about to call it quits and admit defeat (at least until after a meal), JARVIS piped up again.

“Sir, Agent Barton is requesting access to the lab.”

Which was weird. Avengers did not come to Tony’s domain. Bucky, and sometimes Steve with him, were the only ones who had ever ventured into workshop before.

“Tell him his new bow hasn’t made it to fabrication yet,” Tony said distractedly. “Does he even know about the new bow?”

“He does not,” JARVIS informed him. “It seems he’s brought you dinner.”

“He’s – what?” Tony asked. Avengers did not bring him dinner, ever. They barely saw him for a meal. As far as they were aware, he was just the eccentric inventor who funded the Avengers and lived in the workshop on top of the tower.

“He has a covered tray, but he’s insisting that you open up and show your gratitude. Sir.”

Tony sighed. From the tone of his AI’s voice, he had already lost. “Fine. Let him in,” he said. He swiped the blueprints out of the air and turning to greet the Avenger.

“Barton! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Tony asked, false joviality ringing in his voice.

“Heard you wanted some of my famous Bolgenese. Though really, you could have come down and had it with the team,” Clint told him, putting down the tray he was holding on a clear bench. Dum-E trotted over to it, curious as ever, and lifted the lid.

“Dum-E, it’s not poisoned. Pretty sure that means you’re not interested, buddy. Leave it alone,” Tony told his bot. Dum-E complied before looking at him curiously. Tony shifted his attention to Clint. “Much as I appreciate the offer, I was running some processes that needed a close watch from here. And it was an Avengers dinner – I wouldn’t want to intrude on team bonding or whatever.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then thought the better of it. Instead he looked down at Tony’s bot. “Who’s this?” he asked in a higher pitched voice, like he was meeting a small child. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“That is Dum-E, a learning bot. He lives here,” Tony said. “Dum-E, that’s Agent Clint Barton. You helped make his net arrows last month.” He walked over to the tray Clint had brought and lifted the lid. It looked amazing: fusilli completely smothered in a thick, meaty pink sauce overflowed a shallow pasta bowl. Almost half a loaf of bread sat on the side plate, and there was even a glass and half a bottle of recorked wine on the other side. He probably shouldn’t have that, though – not if he wanted to be awake for any amount of time after dinner.

 “You did that? Thanks, buddy!” Clint said, raising one hand to Dum-E.

Tony sat down and studied the archer for a moment. Steve and Bucky had also treated his bots like people, but they were the only ones; Tony had assumed it was some weird nonagenarian thing. But Clint seemed just as taken with him. “He wants a high five, DUM-E. Show him, Barton.”

Clint tapped Dum-E’s grasping hand gently, then raised his hand for Dum-E. The bot excitedly tapped Clint’s hand. “There ya go!” he praised easily. “Good job!” he pat the bot on his support arm before turning back to Tony.

“Thanks for this. It looks great,” Tony said, picking up the bread and tearing a piece off before dipping it in the sauce. “You didn’t have to bring it up here.”

Clint shrugged. “I kinda wanted a word, too. If you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” Tony said, muscles tensing. He took a bite of the bread to cover the movement – and it was heavenly. “Jeeze, Barton, that’s good.”

“Thanks,” Clint said. He paused, hands in his pockets as Tony tucked into his food voraciously. He was still standing over Tony, though he was leaning casually against a steel shelving unit. “You know, the team doesn’t see enough of you,” he started at last. “I mean, we can’t get to know you, man.”

“I’m a busy man,” Tony told him with a half shrug. “Besides, I just fund the Avengers. You’re all better off without any accusations of influence from New York’s rich & famous.”

“I know. We’ve all heard the talking points,” Clint said, a little annoyed. “But you still live here. You can still hang out with us sometimes. Get to know us.”

“What’s this about, Barton?” Tony asked, because for all his bluster, this was far too close to kindness, and people weren’t kind to Tony. People didn’t invite him into their lives without an ulterior motive. They didn’t bring him food, or play with his bots, or invite him to big family dinners. Iron Man, maybe, but not Tony Stark.

“It’s just –” the agent started before tripping over his words. “Did you sleep with Barnes?”

“He told you that?!” Tony asked, back suddenly straight and eyes wide. He and the super soldiers hadn’t expressly talked about confidentiality but he hadn’t thought –

“Not exactly,” Clint said. “I mean, yeah, he told us he and Cap were trying some things out, but he didn’t say a name. Didn’t know for sure until just now.”

Tony stood up and stalked away from the food, back toward his work, furious. “Well forget it,” he snapped. “It’s none of your business.”

“Yeah, I think, actually, it is,” Clint said, with none of the expected heat in his voice. “Barnes is part of the team – Bucky and Steve both. And he may be good now, but he’s had it pretty rough, and none of us want to see him hurt.”

“And why would you think I’d hurt him?” Tony asked venomously.

Clint took a breath. “Honestly, Stark, we all know you by your reputation first, and by how you skulk around here second. We don’t – we’d like to trust you, but we don’t _know_ you. And if anything comes between them –“

“It was a one-time thing,” Tony spat out, the words like acid on his tongue. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clint staring at him, emotions deep and unreadable on his face. “Yeah? Good, then. Keep it that way.”

“Get out of my lab, Agent,” Tony snapped.

“Yeah, Sure,” Clint said softly. “I meant it, Stark. Maybe if any of us really knew you, we’d actually trust you.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Tony said, making his dismissal clear.

Clint turned and left the lab, leaving the food and wine behind.

Tony’s open hand flew angrily down on an empty corner of his workbench as soon as the door clicked shut. Who did Barton think he was, coming down here and _saying_ those things in Tony’s workshop? What gave him the right to come and take this solace away from him? What right did he have to ask _anything_ of Tony – did any of the Avengers have?

His anger drained away as quickly as it had risen. Tony melted to the floor, exhausted and alone, leaning against one leg of his bench.

Of course Barton didn’t trust him. Of course the _Avengers_ didn’t trust him. Why should they? They saw exactly who he was.

_Iron Man yes. Tony Stark no._

“JARVIS, suspend processes,” Tony said, looking up to watch the holograms fade from existence in unison. “And have one of the bots take care of that pasta. I don’t care, just get it out of here. I’ll be in the penthouse.”

He wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight.

He almost grabbed the bottle of wine on his way out, but thought the better of it. He didn’t need anything from Barton – and besides, he had better stuff up in his suite.

After a bottle or two, maybe he would get some sleep after all.

 

…

 

Bucky was in the gym going through a series of strength training exercises, mostly without his left arm, when Thor found him. He barely spared a thought for the god as he entered the room. Thor usually sparred when he was here, or concentrated on the adjacent obstacle courses. He rarely bothered with the strength and cardio conditioning mere mortals needed.

So Bucky was rather surprised when a large hand came down on his shoulder as he rested between sets. Only the fact that Thor’s voice was both familiar and _safe_ to the lingering asset part of his brain stopped him from attacking on contact. “Congratulations, my friend! I have heard that you and the brilliant Tony have finally embarked on a secondary pairing!”

Bucky stared at him in shock. “What?” he asked shortly.

“News travels fast in this tower,” Thor reminded him. “You and Tony are in a relationship now, are you not?”

“Uh, no,” Bucky told him. He wondered briefly if he should be finding Clint, Sam or both for a very demonstrative talk about privacy and boundaries after this. “I’m in a relationship with Steve.”

“But surely the two of you were together last week?” Thor pressed. “I was told Steve approved?”

“Thor, you’re confused, buddy,” Bucky said, pulling out from under the god’s hand. “Relationships consist of two people: in this case, me and Steve. We opened ourselves up to experiment with others, but it was a one-time thing. Tony and I don’t have a relationship.”

Thor’s face fell. “In Asgard, there is no shame in having a second pair. Many of us have multiple concurrent relationships. Is this not what you, Steve and Tony are doing?”

“In Midgard, that’s not done so often,” Bucky said. In fact, he hadn’t ever heard of it being done at all. That didn’t mean it wasn’t making the cogs turn in his head, forming a plan to get him and Stevie out of their mess of emotions.

“I see,” Thor said somberly. He straightened his shoulders and looked down at Bucky seriously. “In that case, I am glad I found you before Tony. It would have been a cruel thing, to say this to him.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.

“Tis nothing,” Thor said dismissively, turning to walk back out of the gym. After a few steps, he turned back. “I would suggest, however, that you do not engage in this isolated act with him again. I believe it affects him far more than it affects you. It would be an act of cruelty, my friend.”

The god turned again and was gone before Bucky could find the words to reply.

 _Couldn’t imagine anything affecting me more than this,_ Bucky thought desolately, chewing on Thor’s words. He was equally pulled between Tony and Steve these days: one he could have whenever he wanted, and one he hadn’t even seen in a week. It was driving him insane.

He started to stack his weights back on their racks. He had had enough for today.

And besides, he had planning to do. Thor just might have handed him the key to all of this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Brooklyn Boys figure out polyamory, and each tries to get their own fella on board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Steve Rogers!
> 
> Since it's technically Wednesday already (EST, at least), here's another chapter. I'm so sorry.

Bucky went straight from the gym to his and Steve’s suite a few floors up. He only paused a moment to text Steve, **_Meet me at our place, I have an idea_** , before heading into the shower.

By the time he was out, he could hear Steve puttering around the apartment. He threw on a pair of sweats and joined his boyfriend in the main living suite.

Steve, ever as impossibly considerate as he was attractive, was piling an insane amount of cold cuts, lettuce and tomato onto two rye bread sandwiches for them.

“You’re a doll, you know that?” Bucky said, slipping onto a stool in front of the breakfast bar.

“I’ve been told,” Steve said, serving him one plate with a tall glass of water. “Mostly by you.”

Steve put down his own midday snack besides Bucky’s before coming around and taking his own seat. Before they could dig in, Bucky stopped him with a hand to his cheek. Steve was growing out a bit of scruff, and it was rough and warm beneath his fingers when he leaned into Bucky’s touch, then turned to kiss his fingers

“Talked to Thor today,” Bucky said, dropping his hand and down to his plate.

“Yeah? That where you get this big idea from?” Steve asked before tucking into his sandwich.

“He congratulated me on starting a second – secondary, actually – relationship with Tony,” Bucky told him. “He thought I was dating both of you. At the same time.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked again, surprise in his voice.

“Didn’t know that was an option,” Bucky admitted. He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully.

“Do you think Tony and Iron Man would be interested in something like that?” Steve asked. “In sharing?”

“Dunno,” Bucky said. “Would you be?”

Steve tilted his head, looking at Bucky. “Yeah, I think I could be,” he said softly, after a moment. “I love you, Buck, but I don’t own you. Not anymore than you own me. Not sure how I’d feel if you were in his bed every night or something, but as long as this relationship comes first.”

“Always. You and me, ‘til the end of the line,” Bucky said like a mantra. He let his right hand fall to Steve’s knee, switching his meal to his left hand.

Steve put his hand on top of Bucky’s, firm and calming. “Til the end of the line,” he replied. “Alright, is there a way this usually happens these days? Are there rules?”

“No idea,” Bucky said. “Thor didn’t even seem to know if it was a thing humans do. His experience has all been Asgardian.”

“I think maybe we should do some research?” Steve hazarded. “Talk to someone? See if there are some books or something we could look into?”

Bucky shrugged. “If you want. I’m happy just asking and seeing what he says.”

Steve gave him a _look_ , like he was somewhere between fond and incredulous. “I want to do this right – if there is a right way to do it at all. I couldn’t bear it if we messed up the team or what we have because we blundered into something.”

Bucky gave his boyfriend an indulgent look. “Alright. We’re not going to mess up what we have, ever – we’ve been through too much for that. But you’re right about the team. And Tony. You do the research, tell me how this goes, and we’ll go from there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Steve told him. “Did Thor have anything else to say?”

Bucky shook his head as he chewed. “Only that he was glad he talked to me first. Apparently he thinks Tony has it bad for me.”

Steve smiled. “That’s good, right? If we try this?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I guess it is.”

                                   

…

 

A week later, Bucky was in Tony’s workshop again. He had barely been back in Avengers Tower for six hours, and he really needed a nap, but every cell in his body said that he had to talk to Tony _now._

A full two weeks had passed since he had last seen Tony. The inventor had been quite obviously avoiding him that first week, and then the Avengers were called off on a mission against a few dozen Doom bots not long after Bucky and Steve had talked about opening their relationship. Although both of them had little downtime, they were able to research enough to know how this was supposed to go.

Polyamorous relationships – that was what it was called, Bucky knew now – could have primary and secondary relationships. So although Steve would be his primary, each of them could have secondary, or several secondary, relationships.

(There were also other kinds of poly relationships: polyfidelous relationships. Bucky thought he might be more interested in them, but they fit within their current attractions. Secretly, he wished Steve had fallen for Tony, too. What would it be like to have both of them in his bed all the time? Together?)

The doors to the lab opened easily to him, far more readily than he had thought they would. Tony was across the room with a blowtorch and Iron Man’s armor, doing some work on the legs. Iron Man had been hit there with an acid of some sort earlier this week, and Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thigh panel had to be replaced.

Dum-E and Butterfingers both came up to flank him as he walked toward Tony, and he pet each of their support beams endearingly as they joined him.

“Bucky, how are you?” Tony asked, barely looking up from his work. “Your arm wasn’t hurt in the fight, was it?”

“Nah, I’m alright,” Bucky assured him. “Hawkeye and I got the easy job this week, sniping from above. It was Steve and Iron Man who took the worst of it.”

“How’s Steve?” Tony asked, real concern in his voice. “Iron Man told me he was banged up, but he didn’t say how bad.”

“Bruised, but more in the ego than the chest, I think,” Bucky told him. “Your Iron Man shielded him when he could. Thank him for me, if you see him.”

“Will do,” Tony said. He put down the blowtorch and turned to look at Bucky.

He looked like Hell. Dark circles under his eyes, hair limp and unmanaged around his head, a taught look like he hadn’t been eating or sleeping right. “What have you been doing to yourself, Dollface?” Bucky asked before he could stop himself. “You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

“Just working,” Tony told him. “A lot of working.”

“Think you can take a break?” Bucky asked. “Come watch a movie or something? Take the night off and actually sleep?”

Tony’s eyes lit up a moment and he looked like he was going to agree, but then he looked down suddenly. “Not tonight,” he said. “Too much to do before meeting with Pepper tomorrow.”

Bucky saw exactly what Thor had meant by being cruel; apparently that one night had blown a schism into their whole relationship.

Nothing for it but to march onward, and hopefully heal. “Do you have a few minutes to talk, though?” Bucky asked. “Please?”

Tony sighed. “Not like I can say no when you ask like that,” he said, false bravado falling short. He put down his tools and turned on his stool to look at Bucky.

Bucky took a seat next to him and consciously looked him in the eyes as he spoke. “I, uh – I probably sound like a broken record, but me ‘n Stevie were talking again.”

“Oh?”

“We – uh, maybe we got this wrong from the start,” Bucky said.

“Hold up, Soldier,” Tony said, putting up a hand. “That was a one-time thing. No strings, not drama, no mistakes.”

“I think that’s the problem, actually,” Bucky said. He knew he had Tony’s attention from the way the other man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “We’ve been talking, and doing our research, and maybe we ought to have thought of it different from the start.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asked suspiciously.

“I – well, we decided maybe we want to open our relationship up a bit more. I’d really like it if I could date you. Steve wants his own relationship with someone else, but the only person I could see myself with besides Stevie is you. And I have to admit, I’ve been seeing it a lot whenever I close my eyes these days, doll. If you’d be interested in something like that. In sharing.”

Bucky closed his mouth and watched as emotions played across Tony’s face. Shock, certainly, and hope perhaps. Suspicion, want and then –

And then he shut down.

“As much as I appreciate the offer, I can’t,” Tony told him, stonefaced. Hastily, he added: “Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.”

“But you want to?” Bucky asked hopefully.

Tony shook his head. “Don’t you already have the perfect boyfriend? What would you need me for?” he deflected.

Bucky smirked. “Dollface, you have no idea. You’re interested, aren’t you?”

Tony gave him a pained face. “Please, don’t,” he insisted. “You know I am, but I –”

“Can’t, yeah,” Bucky interrupted. “Why not?”

“It’s complicated,” Tony told him, voice sounding almost desperate.

“So? I’ve got time. Explain it to me. Please.”

Tony shook his head. “Listen, I’m flattered, but it can’t happen. Even if it could, poly relationships rarely work out the way you think they will. I – you have a good thing going with Steve. I don’t want to be in the middle of that.”

_That’s exactly where I want you,_ Bucky thought silently. He took a deep breath and nodded. He knew that tone of voice. Tony wasn’t going to be talked out of this – at least not via frontal assault. Best to drop it for now, and think of a way to convince the engineer how good a fit they’d be in another way.

“Alright,” Bucky said.

“Alright?” Tony asked.

“Alright, you’re not open to it right now,” Bucky repeated. “But you’re interested. Maybe I can work with that.”

Tony snorted a laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he said sarcastically. He paused, then took Bucky’s hand. “Hey, listen to me. That night, it was a good thing. For all involved. But it’s not realistic to make it a regular thing.”

Bucky nodded. “I hear you, doll,” he said. He put his left hand on Tony’s cheek. “Do me a favor, get some sleep, will you? We need you to take care of yourself here.”

Tony shook his head. “Maybe later.”

“Yeah, right,” Bucky said, shaking his head at the inventor. Any other day, he might have frog-marched Tony out of his lab and into his bed, but that wasn’t an option after this conversation. Instead, he leaned down and dropped a kiss on Tony’s head. “Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Thanks for coming down,” Tony replied.

Bucky nodded once, then exited the lab the way he’d come. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dum-E, Butterfingers and U all rallying around Tony. He hoped the bots took better care of him than he took of himself.

 

…

 

Steve waited a day after their last mission to search out Iron Man. Iron Man had taken a few too many hits, as far as the Captain was concerned, and Steve wanted to make sure he had plenty of time to rest.

When he did go looking for his Shellhead, he couldn’t find him anywhere. He even went down to Tony’s lab, but JARVIS had politely told him that Tony was the only one in there, and unless it was a true emergency, he was not accepting visitors at the moment.

“Jarvis?” Steve asked as he rode the elevator. “If Iron Man is accessible, could you please let him know I’m looking for him? Tell him I’ll be in the library.” It was as good as admitting defeat, but he didn’t know where else to search. He’d already been to Iron Man’s room, the gym, the library, the landing pad, and several other usual haunts.

“Of course, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said politely.

“Thank you,” Steve said before getting off the elevator on the communal floor. It was a short walk to the library, even with a detour to the kitchen for a glass of water, an apple and a block of cheese for a snack. Within minutes, he had settled in with his plate and a solid, real book, waiting for his friend – and hopeful sweetheart – to arrive.

He got halfway through _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_ (part of his effort to catch up on all the culture he’d missed in the ice) before Iron Man found him.

“Cap! I heard you were looking for me,” Iron Man greeted him, sitting down in the reinforced armchair beside him.

“I was,” Steve said. “How are you feeling? Were you hurt much under the suit in the melee?”

“Not bad,” Iron Man assured him. “The suit did its job, kept me safe. Mr. Stark is still working on repairing it. This is last year’s model.”

Steve looked at it, noting the subtle differences from the one Iron Man had been wearing in battle – and the one he had been wearing last week. This one was blockier, less modular than the others, with a larger arc reactor cavityin the chest.

“So what did you need?” Iron Man asked, shifting noticeably under Steve’s gaze.

Steve reached out a hand and rested it on one of Iron Man’s gauntlets. “I was wondering, if last week – what you thought about it?”

“Well it was certainly fun, Cap,” Iron Man told him. “A new experience for me, in the armor. But I thought it was a one-time thing. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and all that. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I, ah, I don’t think I realized until that night how deep my feelings for you ran,” Steve admitted, looking out toward the fireplace instead of Iron Man’s faceplate. “I’ve been talking to Bucky, too. Not about – not about that night per say, but about what we wanted to do about those feelings. We’ve talked it through, and we’re on the same page. I was hoping – well, I was hoping you’d let me take you on a date? That I could date you and Bucky both, if that’s the kind of thing you’d be interested in?”

“Cap,” Iron Man said slowly. Steve turned his head to look at him. He was leaning forward earnestly; even his faceplate seemed sincere. “Cap, you can’t be serious here. I can’t even tell you my name – I can never take this thing off in front of you. What kind of relationship could we possibly have? Where could we possibly go on dates?”

“I hadn’t figured that part out yet,” Steve admitted. “But I want to give it a shot – for us to figure it out together. If you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested,” Iron Man said forlornly. “I just don’t see a way it could work. That’s not – that’s not the kind of relationship you deserve. If I was to date you, it’s not the kind of relationship I’d want to give you.”

“I want whatever you can give me,” Steve said, half desperate. Iron Man was _interested_ – he had said as much. He seemed to want Steve as much as Steve wanted him. “Sure, it won’t be easy, but what about our lives is?”

“In this? Bucky,” Iron Man told him. “You and Bucky have a good thing – a real thing. And don’t get me wrong, I think it’s strong enough to take whatever you throw at it, including another partner. But that’s where you should be spending your energy. Not on someone whose name you’ll never know.”

_Never know_. Steve had always thought they were working up to a point where Iron Man would trust them with his identity. He had thought it was only a matter of time.

“Really?” Steve asked, voice softer than he meant it to be. “Never?”

Iron Man shook his head. “That’s always been the plan, Cap. You know that. You know I can’t.” He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. But this isn’t going to work. I can’t – I can’t be who you want me to be. I’m sorry.”

Before Steve could respond, Iron Man was on his feet, walking out of the library. He paused at the door and looked back at Steve. “For what it’s worth, I would have loved to say yes. I’m sorry.”

Then he was gone.

Steve sat there for a long time, staring at the fireplace. It _hurt_ – it hurt like a bullet wound. Not just the rejection, but the realization that he was _never_ going to know his best friends’ face.  He was never going to touch him again, skin to skin – at least, not like he had last week. There was something final about that. There would be no courting Iron Man, or trying to change his mind, no matter that he was clearly attracted to Steve, too.

Steve thought about going downstairs to his room, but he wasn’t sure if Bucky was there or not, and he needed some privacy.

“Jarvis?” he asked. “Could you lock down the library for me? Is that allowed?”

“There’s nothing in my programming to forbid it, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS informed him. “I will ensure that you are not disturbed.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, listening to the seldom-used door slide shut, lock clicking into place.

Steve stared into the fireplace for a long while after that, only half aware of the tears streaking his face.

 

…

 

By the time Steve made it up to their suite, Bucky was already in bed. He washed up, then stripped down to his boxers and slipped under the covers with him. He curled up and put his head on Bucky’s shoulder, seeing out the comfort of his strong frame.

“How did it go?” Bucky asked.

“Not good,” Steve said, voice as even as he could manage it.

“Yeah, me too,” Bucky replied sadly. “Guess it’s just me and you.”

“Never needed more than that,” Steve told him, despite the pain in his chest.

“Woulda been nice, though,” Bucky said wistfully. Steve agreed silently, nodding into his shoulder.

“He was interested,” Steve said. “But he said it was impossible.”

“Tony said the same thing,” Bucky told him. “Punk wouldn’t even explain. Just said he wanted it, but it couldn’t happen.”

“Iron Man said he couldn’t be with someone who would never see his face,” Steve said. “I didn’t realize – I thought he would tell us eventually. I thought it was a matter of time.”

Bucky sighed beneath him, making Steve’s head bob with the movement. “We can’t do anything easy, can we? Not even picking fellas.”

Steve huffed a laugh, too tired of tears to do anything else. “Guess not.”

Bucky turned over and arranged them so they were facing each other, and Steve’s head was lying on Bucky’s right bicep. “Let’s get some sleep. Things’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I hope you’re right,” Steve said, leaning in and pressing a kiss into his pectoral. “Good night.”

“I’m always right,” Bucky said, carding a hand through his hair. “Good night.”

Steve closed his eyes and fell asleep to the feel of Bucky’s lips kissing his hair.

 

…

 

The next morning, all of the Avengers woke to the same email:

 

> **Team,**
> 
> **I’m sorry to inform you like this that I have to leave, immediately. Stark Industries’ California R &D Division requires remediation by the end the week. I don’t know how extensive the damage is, or how long I will be away from New York. **
> 
> **Iron Man will continue to be at your service, and will stay in Manhattan for the duration of my trip. Alternate safety arrangements have been made for me on the West Coast. If you need me, he’ll know how to contact me.**
> 
> **All the best,**
> 
> **Tony Stark**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team reacts to Tony's absence. Tony hides, even when he's not alone.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Clint said with a look of consternation. He had just walked into the communal kitchen, where the team was talking about Tony’s whereabouts. Bucky glared at him darkly, but bit his tongue.

“Really, do you read your email at all?” Natasha snapped.

Bucky, Steve Natasha, Bruce, Sam and Thor were all already seated around the large breakfast table, discussing the email. After Clint’s arrival, Iron Man was the only current Avenger missing.

“Not before breakfast, usually,” Clint muttered.

“Tony’s gone to California for a little while,” Bucky said, trying to keep the guilt out of his voice. No matter what that email said, he _knew_ he had driven Tony away from his home. “Without a body guard.”

“He’ll be back as soon as his company’s under control. He’s made arrangements for his safety while he’s there,” Steve added, giving Bucky a meaningful glance. He might as well have said the words out loud: _It’s not your fault_.

Bucky glared at him. _Yes. It is_.

He had cornered Tony, and Tony had run away. He should have seen that coming.

“You don’t just leave in the dead of night with an email,” Clint protested. “Who does that? That’s not something teammates do, is it?”

“That’s the thing,” Iron Man said from the doorway. “Mr. Stark isn’t part of the team. He’s a businessman, with responsibilities.”

Clint harrumphed, opened his mouth as if to say something, then skulked over to the coffee machine instead.

“Do you have any idea how long he’ll be gone, Iron Man?” Bruce asked after a moment.

“No more than he said in his email. I think the boss is hoping to keep it as short as possible, but don’t be surprised if it takes weeks, if not months, to get back. Don’t worry, I know he’s still prioritizing upgrades in his free time, there.”

“Not the point,” Clint muttered. 

All the negativity around him was wearing on Bucky’s nerves. Usually he had pretty good control of himself, but between the guilt and the edginess of his teammates, he was getting to the end of his rope. He needed to get out, before his messed up mind made him hit something – or someone – that didn’t deserve it.

He sighed and stood up. “I’m gonna hit the gym,” he said, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I need to hit something. Alone.”

He left the room before anyone could respond.

 

…

 

Tony watched from the armor as Bucky left the room, heart half broken all over again as the super soldier walked away from them, head down and disappointed. He wanted to go after him – to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that it was better that Tony be away for a while. He wished he could explain to  _someone_ how he just couldn't face them without the armor. Not right now, at least. That he needed to give everyone space to come to their senses.

He couldn’t though – not as Iron Man. Not even as Tony, probably.

As soon as he turned back to the room, he noticed Steve watching him with barely-controlled puppy dog eyes.

He had wanted to avoid those kinds of stares when he came down to the kitchen. He had only come to quell the worst of the Avengers’ questions, and make sure that none of them would do anything stupid – like go to Malibu to talk to Tony there.

He sighed. “I have work to do.”

“Before you go, take a message for your employer for me, will you?” Clint snapped. “Tell him he’s not the only one who lives in this tower, and maybe he should take a hint.”

“I’ll take a note,” Tony said, giving the archer a sarcastic salute.

He pivoted back toward the elevator, where he could make his way back to his workshop. He could hear the Avengers talking behind him – Thor wishing Tony well and Sam wondering aloud if things were going to change without him around – but he resolved to ignore them.

“If I may, Sir,” JARVIS said in his ear as they entered the elevator. “I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish with this ruse.”

“You may not, J,” Tony muttered, even though he’d already turned off the suit speakers. “I’m not hoping to accomplish anything. I’m hoping to give myself some space. Get myself together.”

“And yet you will be staying in the tower, Sir?” JARVIS asked.

“I’m Iron Man,” Tony shrugged. “The team may need me, and I’m not gonna do a Hell of a lot of good from Malibu.” The doors opened to the private floor that housed his workshop. “Lockdown mode, J.” Tony said, stepping out of the armor. He’d already set up the lockdown procedure so no one would be able to see him working in. “No one knows I’m here.”

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS said.

Dum-E, U and Butterfingers rolled out of their charging stations to greet Tony as he entered. “Hey kids, Daddy’s home. Think we can get some work done today? I was planning to get that bow done, but I think I’m feeling the new StarkPhone instead. Pepper will be happy.”

He frowned as he brushed aside the plans for Clint’s new bow. Who did the archer think he was, first coming into Tony’s workshop to chew him out about Bucky, then giving him a message through Iron Man? As if Tony wasn’t aware of exactly how many people lived in his tower.

“Dum-E, come here,” Tony said distractedly, sitting at his bench. The bot rolled up to him and looked at him quizzically. Tony reached out and started to pet his support beam.

“Sir, is everything alright?” JARVIS asked him after a minute like that.

“Everything’s fine, JARVIS,” Tony said, withdrawing his hand from the bot. “I just – is there some way I can _not_ be Tony Stark for a while?”

“Not that I’m aware of, Sir,” JARVIS told him, his voice softer than usual.

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Tony said.

Wouldn’t it all be easier if he wasn’t? If he wasn’t Tony Stark, Merchant of Death, he would be able to tell the world who Iron Man was. If he wasn’t Tony Stark, reckless playboy, maybe he would have the respect of the team. Maybe he would be able to tell Steve who he was.

Maybe he would be able to say yes to Steve.

Say yes to Bucky.

He leaned back, both hands rubbing over his face.

He wanted them both. Wanted them so bad, and they didn’t even know who he was. Not really. Neither of them knew his other half.

It would be so elegant, the three of them together. He knew exactly how to support them – how to cheer Steve up when he was missing home, how to make sure Bucky was moving forward and thinking for himself, how to take care of Bucky’s arm and how to protect Steve on the field. And they – well, Steve was his best friend, really. Almost since he had come out of the ice, he had relied on Iron Man to help him through this new century, and Tony had relied on him to be a strong sense of reason and someone to trust. Bucky was more romantic – sweeter – but probably because he mostly saw Tony outside of the armor.

Bucky was the only one of the Avengers who saw Tony outside of the armor, really. Bucky and Steve, when the blond super soldier came down to support Bucky with his arm.

“What the Hell am I going to do?” Tony asked aloud.

“If I may, Sir,” JARVIS said. “Perhaps it may be time to consider telling the Avengers the truth?”

“No,” Tony said, automatically. “Delete the idea from your servers, J. It’s not happening. They’re not going to want Tony Stark on the team, and you know I can’t – I can’t _not_ be Iron Man. Bring up the StarkPhone files.”

Tony leaned forward in his chair, looking over the files as they appeared in hologram form before him.

Dum-E put his mechanical head on Tony’s lap, letting Tony pet him distractedly as he worked.

 

…

 

Steve watched as Iron Man left the kitchen, then glared at Clint. It wasn’t right, but it was much easier to take out his frustration on Clint than confront his feelings about Iron Man again.

“Why do you have to make things so hard on him?” he asked, voice harsher than it should have been with a teammate.

“On who?” Clint asked. “Iron Man? I don’t really think it’s a hardship to hear me angry at his boss.”

“On Tony,” Steve clarified.

Clint’s eyebrows lowered in frustration. “I don’t make things hard on him,” he protested. “I’ve been trying to get him to join us – to come to a damn movie night or dinner or something – since we moved in here. He’s the difficult one.”

“Tony likes his privacy,” Steve said tiredly. “And he’s a busy man. We all know that. If he can’t join us for team nights, we should respect that.”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said, voice carefully calm and controlled. “I don’t like this slipping out in the night thing, either, but I feel like it might have been easier to handle if he wasn’t always acting like he’s avoiding us.”

“He’s not avoiding us,” Steve said, not really sure why he was defending this man – though at least half of it was for Bucky’s sake. The other half? Well, he’d gotten to get to know Tony much better in the time that Bucky had been back, and he genuinely liked the engineer.  “He does plenty for us – including giving us homes, food, and all the armor and tech we need.”

“He also hides in his lab constantly,” Clint interjected. “He acts like he wants nothing to do with us.”

“Something I’m sure he has a good reason for,” Natasha piped up calmly. “Like all the work he’s always doing.”

Sam shook his head. “He’s a workaholic,” he pointed out, though there was a note of sadness in his voice. “It’s not about us, it’s about him. We can’t take it personally that he keeps doing exactly what he did before we showed up.”

“I’m just saying –” Clint started.

“And I hear you,” Sam interrupted. “But this is who Tony is – who he’s been for a long time. You’re not gonna change that by complaining or getting in his face.”

“And nothing’s going to change while Tony’s in California,” Steve added. “If you want him to feel more like a part of the team – which I think he should, for the record – plan to make it happen when he gets back.”

 Clint glared mutinously, but Sam interjected before he could respond. “Maybe we can think of something he might actually respond to. How about you and I take lead on that, Clint?”

“Fine,” Clint said mulishly.

Steve smiled. Iron Man might be his second in the field, but Sam was just as good a leader as either of them, especially when it came to team dynamics. He was glad he had brought Falcon onto the team; he fit a hole Steve didn’t even know they were missing.

He glanced around the table. Natasha and Bruce seemed satisfied enough with the solution. Thor, who had been conspicuously silent through the whole conversation, was just staring intently at his pop tarts. Steve opened his mouth to ask his opinion, but then shut it. If Thor had something to add, he wouldn’t hesitate to.

Steve would seek him out alone later.

 “I’m going for a run,” he announced, standing up from the table and gathering his dishes to wash. “Sam, want to join me?”

“Not on your life, Cap,” Sam smiled at him. “I already did my five miles this morning. I don’t need you to humiliate me on top of that.”

Steve nodded. “I can take it easy on you?”

“You’re making it worse,” Sam said. “Go, leave the dishes. We’ll load the dishwasher.”

Steve frowned for a moment – usually he would wash his own dishes by hand, because there were some things about the future he just could not get used to – then smiled at his friend. “Thanks,” he said. 

He put his hands through his hair as he walked to the stairwell, headed toward his room. What must Bucky think, with Tony leaving them so soon after he had asked him out? Steve read the guilt in Bucky’s eyes as clear as day when they were talking about it.

And yet a part of Steve felt jealous of his boyfriend. He felt like he needed that space from Iron Man: space to regroup, to heal. To reframe their relationship back into a friendship.

Yeah, a run was definitely in order. Maybe afterwards he’d contact Stephen Strange or Mr. Fantastic and see if there wasn’t something he and Bucky could help out with – something that would take them away from the team for a while. Iron Man and Sam could handle all the leadership role without him.

Hell, maybe he and Bucky needed a vacation together.

He laughed quietly at the thought. Like Captain America was ever going to get that.

 

…

 

Two days later, Tony was in his lab, staring at the new StarkPhone code. There was something broken about it – something R&D had missed, and that he knew was there, but that he couldn’t pinpoint. Despite sleeping last night (for once) and eating regularly (for him), his brain was not working. He just couldn’t figure it out.

“What am I missing here, J?” he asked, not really expecting a serious response from his AI. If it was something JARVIS could diagnose, he would have offered the solution already.

“Regular downtime, Sir?” JARVIS hazarded. “Fun? I understand it’s imperative to human cognitive functioning.”

“Not helping, J,” Tony said in a warning tone.

“My mistake,” JARVIS said in that politely snarky tone he had so carefully cultivated. “I thought you were asking for help in solving your coding quandary.”

Tony sighed, not really in the mood to verbally spar with his AI. He stared at the code for another minute, not making a bit of progress.

“What kind of fun?” he asked, already knowing he had lost.

“I wouldn’t presume to know,” JARVIS replied. “Although the Avengers are planning a movie night tonight. I believe Thor has chosen the first of the _Underworld_ series. Iron Man has a standing invitation to these events.”

Tony thought about it for a moment: how uncomfortable it would be to go down there and watch a full movie in the suit, unable to fidget and twitch the way he usually did in front of a TV. How the rest of the Avengers would be surprised by his presence, and how they might think he was butting in where he wasn’t really wanted.

But he would be _Iron Man_ , not Tony Stark, he reminded himself. Iron Man was a part of the team – someone they had all bonded with, in their own ways. Iron Man _was_ welcome there.

“Bring up the latest suitcase suit, that one’s a little sleeker, maybe a little more comfortable to sit around in, I think,” he said. “Dum-E, make me a smoothie, will you? Something with a lot of protein and no motor oil – I’m going to need it if I’m watching the rest of them with their snacks all night. JARVIS, keep an eye on him, will you?”

“Of course, Sir.” JARVIS’s voice was markedly more energetic.

“Don’t think I don’t hear that pep in your voice,” Tony told him, fondness for the AI washing through him. The smile on his face probably belied his words. “You haven’t won just because I’m going down there.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” JARVIS said.

Tony let the suit encase him, leaving only the faceplate up, and then moved in it experimentally. “Hey, maybe I should design a loungewear version of this thing,” he said aloud, taking his smoothie from Dum-E. “Something I can sit and watch movies in.”

“I’ll add it to the queue,” JARVIS replied.

 _There’s an idea_ , Tony thought. _Maybe I can fake Tony Stark’s death – give the company to Pepper and Rhodey, put some money away for the Avengers, live out my life in the suit_.

He shook his head. He’d never make it a week before his CEO outed him. Pepper had been so close so many times, that would definitely push her over the edge.

Instead of the main elevator, he took his personal direct elevator to Iron Man’s room. This elevator shaft was hidden on the tower plans, and only opened up to four floors: Tony’s private SI office, his workshop, Iron Man’s room, and his penthouse apartment. On each floor, a hidden panel disguised its existence.

That elevator was going to get a lot more use for a while, since the only public entrance he could use for any of them would be Iron Man’s room.

He left his smoothie cup in the communal kitchen sink and picked up a bottle of sparkling water with a straw before making his way to the group lounge.

Natasha and Clint were already settled in, sharing a couch. Clint was saying something soft and low, while Natasha looked at him with that subtly fond gaze of hers. Bruce was standing by the bar, making himself a drink, though he didn’t have any bottles of alcohol out as far as Tony could see.

“Iron Man! You here for the show?” the other scientist asked with an encouraging smile.

“With Mr. Stark gone, I have some more time on my hands,” Tony explained easily, choosing one of the reinforced chaise lounges to stretch out on. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing, lying in the armor, but it wasn’t as bad as he had expected. “I thought I should use it at team nights.”

“Welcome, Man of Iron!” Thor boomed from the lounge entrance. “I’m glad you could come, though I hope for a time you may join us without your shell.”

“Thanks, Thor,” Tony said, letting the voice augmentation pick up on the dryness of his voice. “Not going to happen, no matter how many times you suggest it.”

Thor walked in and put a hand on his shoulder. “I respect your decision, but it’s not the only available option,” the god said softly before taking the seat beside Tony.  “Remember that.”

“I will,” Tony placated him before changing the subject. “I hear we’re watching _Underworld_ tonight? Your choice?”

“Indeed, it came highly recommended by a suitor of the Lady Darcy,” Thor told him.

“We’re just waiting on Sam, Steve and Bucky, then,” Bruce said, taking a seat beside Natasha on the couch she was sharing with Clint. She easily stretched out between them, head on Bruce’s shoulder and legs on Clint’s thighs. Tony wondered what, if anything, he should read into that.

“And we are here,” Sam said from behind them. Tony looked back to see Sam walking into the lounge, Steve and Bucky just behind him, holding hands. “Sorry if we’re late.”

“You’re right on time!” Thor told them, but Tony didn’t pay attention to his words after that.

Tony studied Steve and Bucky as they arranged themselves on the love seat between Thor and Bruce’s seats. He was vaguely aware of Sam snagging the armchair on the other side of him, but the movement didn’t draw his eyes away from the way Steve sat on the couch before pulling Bucky down so he laid half on his chest, half on the love seat, with one leg stretching out onto an ottoman in front of them.

He stifled a sigh. He should be there. With both of them. As Tony Stark, and as Iron Man.

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t be good for them, not as Tony Stark nor as Iron Man.

How had he let his life get so complicated?

He turned toward the screen, but not before seeing Thor’s sympathetic look. How did the Norse god know to look sympathetic?

“Let’s get this show on the road, then,” Tony said jovially.

“Jarvis, you heard the man,” Sam said.

“Of course, Mr. Wilson,” JARVIS said as he lowered projector screen and lowered the lights. Tony couldn’t help feeling proud of what he had made here: even if he wasn’t a direct part of the Avengers team, his AI was almost as naturally a part of their lives as he was to Tony’s. He had built him, given him meaning, and given him freedom to be part of this team.

And the Avengers saw him as such. Not just as a tool, but as an intelligent being.

It was almost enough to counteract the pain of separating himself from Steve and Bucky.

He tried to relax into the suit, settling back into the chaise and keeping his eyes off the couple. It didn’t work – of course, he kept stealing glances at them– but he made a good show of it. He didn’t even relax when Bucky started to doze against Steve’s chest, no matter how adorable that was, or how proud he was that the soldier felt comfortable enough to do so in this crowd. He even kept his hands still, stopping himself from clenching them and loosening them again compulsively, when Steve started to run his hand down Bucky’s forearm comfortingly, or drop subtle kisses into his hair.

Tony really did try to watch the movie, even though it was one he had seen with Rhodey years ago. He just couldn’t help watching the super soldier couple instead, and he certainly couldn’t help the way it tore his heart out to keep himself away from them.

This was a terrible idea. He wondered if maybe Iron Man shouldn’t be in Malibu, too.

He was up and out of his seat as soon as the closing credits started rolling.

“Going so soon?” Thor asked, looking up at him warmly.

“Not sure this suit was really designed for movie nights,” Tony told them, allowing a half-truth answer. “Maybe I should talk to Mr. Stark about that.”

“Maybe you should,” Clint told agreed. “We were going for a double feature tonight.”

Tony looked around.  Natasha, Sam, Bruce and Bucky were all asleep, leaving only Thor, Clint, Steve and himself up. “You sure the team’s up for that?”

Thor chuckled. “They seldom are. It doesn’t stop us from trying.”

“Well, have fun,” Tony told them. “I’m heading back to my suite. I’m chafing in places I didn’t know this thing could chafe.”

“Be well, Man of Iron,” Thor said. “And think on my words.”

“Will do,” Tony lied.

 

…

 

Steve watched silently as Iron Man left the common room, then gently extricated himself from Bucky. His boyfriend roused himself enough to fully stretch out on the love seat, legs hanging off one arm and head propped against the other, before drowsing again.

It was hard, seeing Iron Man now, so soon after being rejected by him. It was harder still that he kept so much distance, not even saying hello to Steve.

Steve understood. He understood all of it – the newfound freedom to spend more time with the team and the distance he was keeping from Steve both – but it didn’t make any of it easier.

“Hey, Thor, could you help me make another round of snacks?”

“Of course, Captain,” Thor said, following Steve into the kitchen.

Steve waited until he was sure they were out of the range of Clint’s hearing aids before remarking, “You were quiet in the kitchen, the other day. When we were all talking about Tony leaving.”

“I had nothing to say on the matter,” Thor agreed pleasantly, pulling popcorn out of a cabinet and starting it in the microwave.

“Is there something I should know about Tony?” Steve asked, giving the god a look. “Or Iron Man?”

Thor let out a breath of a laugh. “Nothing that they want you to know at the moment,” he said. “Their secrets are their own, and I do not think they will be a burden to the Avengers in any way.”

“So they confided in you?” Steve asked. He pulled down a few boxes of candy, just to seem busy.

“Not at all,” Thor said. “But you forget, I am a god, with a Trickster brother. There are few tricks of men that I cannot see through.”

Steve nodded. Thor didn’t give him much in the way of new information, but he thought he had enough to think on, at least. He’d tell Bucky about their conversation later, and see what he had to say.

“Thanks, Thor,” he said. “If you don’t think it’s worth asking, I trust you. But tell me if you think whatever it is will become a problem.”

Thor gave him a sly smile. “I didn’t say it wasn’t worth asking, just that it would not be a burden to the team if you choose not to,” he clarified. “Of course, if that changes, you’ll be the third to know, after Iron Man and Tony Stark themselves.”

Steve nodded again. That would have to do.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More team dynamics while Tony's in hiding. OH and Rhodey shows up.
> 
> Much like Thor, Rhodey is the best.

“Tony, why am I taking my leave in New York City when all of the Avengers think you’re in Malibu?” Rhodey asked a few days later, plopping himself down on the couch in Tony’s penthouse suite.

“Honeybear, I thought you knew I tell you all my secrets,” Tony said, lying down so his head was in Rhodey’s lap and looking up at him through his lashes.

“Yeah, and your whereabouts is usually not on that list,” Rhodey said, though he didn’t push Tony off his lap. Tony figured that was a win.

“I just need a break,” Tony told him flippantly. “Can’t I escape for a while? Run away? Take my best friend with me?”

“But you’re not running anywhere,” Rhodey argued. “Why are you doing this, Tones?”

Tony sighed at the stern note in his best friend’s voice. He lifted himself up and sat on the couch opposite his friend. “I slept with them.”

Rhodey knew Tony too well to be shocked – he didn’t even raise his eyebrows. “With who?”

“Steve and Bucky,” Tony confessed.

“At the same time?”

Tony shook his head. “No. At separate times. Bucky knew who I was, but – I wore the Iron Man armor with Steve. He still doesn’t know.”

“You did what now?” Rhodey asked. And yeah, those eyebrows were raised in a way that meant Rhodey really didn’t believe what he was hearing. Even for Tony, that was bad.

“You heard me, platypus,” Tony said miserably. “It was just supposed to be fun, casual – one night and done. It was their idea. But then a week later both of them came and asked to date me, separately. Bucky wanted to date Tony, Steve wanted to date Iron Man.”

Rhodey whistled. “That’s some mess you’ve got yourself in, Tones. Even for you. What are you planning to do about it?”

 “Nothing,” Tony said, staring out into space miserably. “I told both of them no, then I wrote an email and ran away to Malibu. Except I stayed here, as Iron Man, because I couldn’t exactly leave the team without the air support, could I? And I really didn’t want to leave.” He was a mess. He knew he was. He had gone over this in his head so many times – he had so many excuse to just _leave the armor on_ , and they changed every day. But he gave Rhodey the truth, or at least as near to it as he could articulate: “I just – I don’t want them to see me. The minute they do, I’m sure they’re going to have it all figured out. I don’t think I can see them without the armor.”

Rhodey shook his head and reached out, taking Tony by the shoulder. “You knew this secret identity was going to catch up with you eventually,” he said softly. “Especially with you – you test the limits of everything, Tony. It’s who you are.”

“I wasn’t supposed to test this,” Tony grumbled.

Rhodey’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “You have to tell them. There’s no other way.”

“No.” Tony shook his head. “No, I’m not telling them. They’ll want me off the team. God – Steve – he won’t ever want to see me again. Who _does that?_ Who sleeps with a person and doesn’t even tell them that it’s only anonymous on one side? What kind of person does that make me?”

“Someone with his heart in the right place but his brain kinda scrambled, I’d say,” Rhodey said kindly. “You really think they’ll throw you off the Avengers? Still?”

“Of course I do,” Tony said. “Hell, Clint even came up to the lab to warn me away from Bucky. Told me not to ruin what they have.”

“Clint did what!?” Rhodey asked, then visibly took control of himself. “Ok, never mind that. Clint’s an idiot. The rest of them wouldn’t –”

“Why does no one else believe me about this?” Tony interrupted. “Hell, JARVIS doesn’t even believe me and he’s _my_ AI.”

“Because you’re being an idiot, Tony,” Rhodey told him patiently. “No one’s going to kick you off the team just because you pilot Iron Man, instead of just employing him.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tony shot back. He put a hand through his hair. “Come on, I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s find a movie, order in some sushi or something, and talk about _literally_ anything else.”

Rhodey gave him a stern look. “I’m serious, Tony. You’re torturing yourself here. I hate to see you like this. There’s no reason for it.”

“Rhodey, I love you, I trust your judgement –” Rhodey let out a rude huff, as if he didn’t believe Tony, and Tony ignored it – “but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree here. I know the Avengers. I know me. It’s not going to happen.”

“Alright,” Rhodey said. “I’ll drop it. But I get to pick out the first movie. And the restaurant for take out.”

Tony sighed. “Deal.”

 

…

 

Bucky’s mood was less than stellar when he stalked into the gym. He hadn’t seen Tony since he had rejected him a week ago. Steve was sulking over the way Iron Man distanced himself from both of them, but at least Iron Man was _there_ : on missions, at movie nights, in the damn kitchen with them, even though he wouldn’t eat with anyone.

Bucky went straight to the punching bags, needing easy targets and clear rules to get his frustration out of his system. He set three reinforced ones up all in a row, knowing he would probably break at least one before he was satisfied.

He started on the first one with small, easy combos. His mind wandered back to Tony’s penthouse as his hands flew. He felt Tony’s fingers on his arm again, saw him falling back onto his bed playfully, that impish grin on his face. Felt him all over, inside and out.

His fist went straight through the first bag, and he pivoted to the second with barely a pause.

This time his brain when back to almost a year ago, to Tony talking excitedly about neuro-uplinks and new arms, and everything he wanted to give – everything he wanted to _make_ for Bucky. Then, halfway into his manic ranting, he stopped to look Bucky straight in the eyes. _“We’re not doing anything unless_ you _want it,_ ” the inventor had said. _“I know I’m going a little fast right now, but I’ll go over all the options with you in detail. If you really want, we can keep the one you have, but it’s going to take a lot of work to make sure it doesn’t hurt you anymore._ ”

No one had ever asked Bucky what he thought of any changes to his body – especially the arm. The conversation had left him reeling for days. He thought that might have been the start of his feelings for Tony Stark.

And now he was gone, avoiding Bucky, because Bucky couldn’t keep it in his fucking pants and had to push for something Tony couldn’t give.

The second bag crashed to the ground, pulverized by his fists. Bucky took a few deep breaths before turning to the third.

He wasn’t getting tired yet – not by a long shot – but the raw edges of his frustration were becoming somewhat salved.

Tony was going to come back. Steve kept reminding him of it. Hell, even Iron Man had confirmed it last week right after Tony left – he would be back as soon as he could.

Assuming he wasn’t lying about the company business, of course. Assuming he wanted to come back.

Bucky dismissed the thought. It was unhelpful, and possibly unwarranted.

Tony _needed_ to come back. He could do almost everything else remotely, but at some point, he was going to have to perform maintenance on Bucky’s arm, and he’d have to come back. He’d have to _talk_ to Bucky, even if it was just enough for Bucky to apologize for pushing too hard. There was no world where Bucky Barnes didn’t see Tony Stark again.

He breathed as he punched. He took solace in that thought.

By the time the third bag broke open under the stress of his hits, he was feeling something like human.

 Hawkeye walked into gym as Bucky was cleaning up the mess of his bags. “Barnes!” the archer greeted him. “I was just about to do a run in the obstacle course. Wanna join?”

“Not today,” Bucky growled, not quite up to human interaction yet. He turned pointedly, picking up the last bag to dispose of it.

“What’s up with you?” Clint asked. “Everything alight?”

“Everything’s fine,” Bucky snapped.

He could feel the skeptical look on his back.

“Is there something you need from me, Barton?” he asked, loud enough that the archer would be able to hear him, even without the benefit of lip reading.

“No, nothing _I_ need,” Clint said. “You just seem – you’ve been off lately, you know? You need someone to talk to?”

Bucky sighed and turned back toward Clint. “You remember that thing I told you and Sam about at the bar a few weeks ago?” He waited for Clint to nod before continuing. “It’s about that. I’m figuring it out. Steve and I both.”

 Clint’s eyes fell. “Well, damn. I didn’t think –“ he caught himself. “Did Tony do anything, before he left?”

“Tony?” Bucky asked, anger rising in his chest. “How did you know?”

“You’re kinda obvious, Barnes,” Clint told him.

Bucky shook his head once, definitively, keeping his anger in check. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Good,” Clint said. “I told him not to fuck up.”

Bucky saw red. Barton had – what? Gone to Tony and threatened him? Intimidated him?

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head dangerously.  “What did you say?” he asked, carefully controlling his emotions.

“Hey, I was just trying to help,” Clint said, putting both hands up in a placating gesture. “I brought him dinner in his lab, after we all ate together. Asked if you guys had a thing, then told him to think before getting between you and Steve. You know how he is.”

“No, I don’t,” Bucky said, furious. He was vibrating with the effort of not attacking the archer. He was about to ask Clint to explain himself to him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to control himself if he did.

Tony didn’t leave because _Bucky_ pushed him too hard, Bucky realized. Tony left because he had been warned off by an arrogant, overprotective teammate. Bucky seethed.

He tossed the reinforced bag at the archer angrily. It caught him in the midsection and sent him falling back on his backside.

“Here, you clean up my mess. I have to go deal with yours,” Bucky spat out.

“Hey!” Clint called as Bucky turned and stalked out of the gym. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bucky turned back to look at him and sneered. “For the record, Barton, everything’s fine between Steve ‘n me. It’s Tony I’ve been upset about. Maybe you should quit trying to shove your nose into things you know nothing about.”

He turned and left, not interested in anything else Clint had to say.

 

….

 

“So let me get this straight,” Steve said, a little over half an hour later. He was sitting on their couch as Bucky paced the length of the living room. “Clint had a chat with Tony about us, and how he shouldn’t endanger our relationship. Then, a few days later, you asked him out, and he said no. And then he left? Immediately after?”

“As far as I can see, that’s exactly what happened,” Bucky confirmed glumly. “He thinks – I don’t know, but knowing Tony he probably thinks the whole team is against him. He’s probably built it up so big in that gargantuan brain of his, he doesn’t even know what’s what anymore.”

Steve didn’t immediately respond, so Bucky looked over to see him frowning. “So what do we do about it?” he asked eventually.

Bucky hated that question. He knew exactly why Steve asked it so often, and he was grateful – but he hated it. He wanted to be _told_. He wanted a mission. Especially when he was so emotionally tied up in a problem, he didn’t want to have to extract his feelings from logic, to think through something and know that it was his shoulders the plan rode on.

“I don’t know.”

Steve didn’t respond. Punk was waiting for him to think some more.

Bucky paced stubbornly.

“I have to talk to him,” he said eventually. “Not to – I have to apologize, if I was the reason he left. But I need to tell him Clint doesn’t speak for the rest of us.”

Steve nodded. “You want to ask Iron Man to put us in touch with him?”

“No,” Bucky said, shaking his head. He came to a halt in front of the couch and dropped down next to Steve. “No, we know where to find him. Think anyone will mind if we take a quinjet to Malibu?”

Steve grabbed Bucky’s right hand and squeezed it encouragingly. “I think we can spare one. Let me fill Sam in. He and Iron Man can take care of things while we’re gone. We’ll leave in an hour.”

Bucky noted Steve’s clear message: Iron Man wouldn’t know where they were going until after they’d left. He wouldn’t have time to warn Tony.

He leaned over and kissed Steve soundly on the lips. “Thanks.”

 

…

 

 Two hours later, Steve and Bucky were landing the quinjet on Tony’s personal landing strip in Malibu, California. It was a beautiful place to land: in the middle of a huge, open field in overlooking the Pacific Ocean, shining in the midday sun. The kid from Brooklyn Bucky used to be would have considered it romantic, though after his time as the Winter Soldier, he wondered why that word would bubble up in his mind at all.

The mansion here was newly built – the original had been destroyed just before the Avengers Initiative had formed – and was both beautiful and intimidating. It looked like a single double-high floor sprawled over the edge of a cliff, all floor-to-ceiling windows and bright sand-dollar white stucco. Bucky knew from schematics that there were at least two additionally floors built right into the mountain. It was half palace, half fortress, Bucky thought.

And he had thought that _he_ , this poor kid from the wrong side of the East River, who had spent most of his life as a brainwashed slave, had a chance dating him?

“C’mon, Buck, it’s _Tony_ ,” Steve said, reading him as clear as day. “He may be a bit of a peacock, but this stuff doesn’t matter to him.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, though the weight over his shoulders didn’t lift any. “Yeah, I know.”

He noticed something was wrong as soon as they stepped out of the quinjet: the mansion was oddly dark. No lights streamed from any of the rooms, despite the fact that the light outside was fading quickly.

They made their way to the main entrance and found the biometric reader on the side of the door. Steve’s handprint unlocked it easily.

“Good afternoon, Captain Rogers, Sargent Barnes,” FRIDAY, Tony’s secondary AI system, said cheerfully as they walked inside. “You weren’t expected today. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Hi Friday. Is Tony around?” Bucky asked. “We came here to talk to him.”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant Barnes, but Mr. Stark hasn’t been here in several months,” FRIDAY replied. “I can interface with JARVIS for you and see where you can find him.”

“What do you mean, not been here for months?” Steve asked. “He’s been here for the last week.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Captain. I’ve been on standby for approximately four months, since Mr. Stark’s last visit. If he’s been in California, he has not been here, or interacted with me.” There was a quiet hint of annoyance in her voice. Bucky didn’t know if it was because she didn’t like to be questioned, or she didn’t like the idea of Tony in California without talking to her.

While Steve spoke, Bucky looked around the entryway suspiciously. Everything was neat and orderly, as it should be, but his trained eye noted a fine layer of dust – at least a week’s worth. Housekeeping was on a diminished schedule here, it seemed. He took a step forward into the living room. Drop clothes covered the furniture, protecting the pieces during their owners’ long absence.

“She’s right, Steve,” Bucky said, calming his breathing and reading himself for a fight. There was so much _not right_ about this. “He’s not here. He hasn’t been here.”

“Then where is he?” Steve asked, annoyance clear on his face. “Friday, please get in touch with JARVIS for us. Or Tony himself. Find out where he his.”

“Of course, Captain,” FRIDAY said. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for your confusion.”

“What could possibly explain this?” Bucky asked, starting to pace uncomfortably. It felt like his skin was too tight. He didn’t want to stand here thinking – he wanted to get out and _do._ Everything in him screamed: _Find Tony!_

“If he wrote that email himself, that means he was lying to us,” Steve started. “If he didn’t...”

“Kidnapped? Even if he did write it, he could have been kidnapped _en route_ ,” Bucky finished. He flexed his left hand, just to feel the gears slide against each other. No matter that he didn’t have a target, he was itching for a gun right now. “From what I hear, it used to be a hobby of his.”

He took out his phone and tried calling Tony, only to get his voicemail. Wherever he was, his phone was either off or broken.

“That hasn’t happened years, though. Not since he made Iron Man,” Steve reminded him.

“Yeah, and Iron Man would know, right?” Bucky asked, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. He tried the number again, with the same result. “He wouldn’t be just lounging around, watching movies with us.”

“Excuse me,” FRIDAY chimed in, “but I’m afraid JARVIS could not give me Mr. Stark’s location. I’m afraid he’s classified it as need-to-know only.”

“Well we need to know!” Bucky snapped.

“You’ll have to talk to talk with JARVIS, Sergeant. I can get him on the line for you.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, Tony’s not answering his phone – it’s not even on. We need to get the Avengers on the line. All of them. Tony’s missing, possibly kidnapped. If JARVIS has been keeping that a secret from us for the last week, I’m not sure I’m gonna trust him now.”

He looked over at Steve, who nodded. “I’m with you, Buck.”

As a unit, they pivoted and ran back to the quinjet. Steve was punching the comm codes as Bucky started the jet’s preflight routine. 

“Avengers, we’re on our way back to New York now,” Steve barked into the microphone. “We’ll be there in less than two hours. Tony’s missing, possibly kidnapped. Assemble!”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Man tries to mitigate the damage done by Steve and Bucky's trip to California, and manages to buy himself some time. Kinda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With all your (wonderful!) comments since the last chapter, I've thought of SO MANY different ways this could go. The one I took here was unlike any of the suggestions, so I'm a little nervous to share, but hopefully it works. (Or, more specifically, hopefully it sets up chapter 9 well, as this is the calm before the storm.)

Tony was curled up, half on Rhodey’s lap, stealing all the popcorn as they watched _Wonder Woman,_ when the alarm blared.

Steve’s voice came through loud and clear over the penthouse speakers: _“Avengers, we’re on our way back to New York now. We’ll be there in less than two hours. Tony’s missing, possibly kidnapped. Assemble!”_

Rhodey didn’t even give him the dignity of trying not to laugh. He doubled over, pushing further into Tony’s space, as peals of laughter spilled out of him.

Tony retreated back to his half of the couch to scowl at him. “It’s really not that funny.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re not seeing it from my perspective,” Rhodey said.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’m saying it because this is not funny at all,” Tony disagreed. “And you’re a bad friend for saying it is. Really, the Avengers think I’m kidnapped, I have to go convince them that I’m not, and all you can do is laugh?”

“Seriously, Tones, this is your life now,” the Colonel said between gasps of laughter. “You made this.”

Tony glared. “Pause the movie. Let me deal with this. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Rhodey said, following him to the secret elevator. He just barely had himself under control when he asked, “JARVIS, buddy, do you have any Iron Patriot armor to bring up with the Iron Man one? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Don’t you dare, J,” Tony said as soon as the words were out.

“I’d love to, Master Rhodes,” JARVIS said, a touch of humor in his voice. “However, I believe the only Iron Patriot armor in the tower is still in fabrication, and is not yet flight ready.”

Rhodey looked at Tony with a happily surprised expression. “You’re making me a new suit?”

“Of course I’m making you a new suit,” Tony told him. “I’m constantly in R&D on these things. You think I’m going to upgrade Iron Man and not you?”

“You know, this is what I’m talking about,” Rhodey said. “You’re always doing things for others, and then you’re surprised when they notice. You really think they all like Iron Man more than they like you?”

Tony brushed the words off. Rhodey would never understand where he was coming from with the team. He was _glad_ Rhodey would never have the experience to really understand it.

“Wait,” he said once they were in the elevator. “What if you just took out the Iron Man armor for me? I can be Tony Stark, you can be Iron Man, we can get this whole thing cleared up –”

Rhodey broke into another fit of laughter. “No way. First of all, you’re short and I am not torturing myself all scrunched up in that thing. Second of all, you got yourself into this thing. You don’t want to come clean? You can talk your way out.”

 

…

 

Steve was sitting in the copilot seat, anxiously looking out at the skies somewhere above the Midwest when a familiar energy signatures appeared on the radar.

“Stand down, Cap,” Iron Man’s voice came over the radio as Iron Man came into view at their ten. “No one’s missing.”

“Funny, we were just at the west coast mansion where he said he’d be staying, and FRIDAY hasn’t seen him in months,” Bucky replied. Steve could see his eyes narrow in anger. They were going to have trouble if Bucky didn’t get a straight answer about Tony’s whereabouts soon.

Then again, Steve wasn’t sure if he was doing any better. Out in the field or not, Tony was an intrinsic part of the team, and Steve certainly wasn’t going to stand down when he didn’t know where he was.

“Situation is under control, Soldier,” Iron Man said.

“Where’s Tony?” Steve asked, voice clear and controlled.

“Safe,” Iron Man said. “Working.”

“That’s not good enough, Shellhead,” Steve warned, cursing himself for using the nickname as soon as it was out of his mouth.

Because dammit, but _this_ was the first actual conversation he was having with Iron Man since that night in the library? Really? All he wanted to do was reconcile with the man, and now he was withholding important information about a teammate?

“It’s going to have to be, Cap,” Iron Man replied. “I’m under strict orders from the bossman not to provide his location to anyone, including the Avengers.”

“Well you can tell your boss that this is bullshit,” Bucky snapped. “Whether he wants to see us or not, he can at least be honest with us.”

“I’ll send him a memo,” Iron Man said dryly.

“Iron Man, I really need you to start talking right now,” Steve grit out. “Or Jarvis. Someone needs to tell us what the Hell’s going on.”

Iron Man was probably wise not to call Steve on his language.

 “Look, just call off the Avengers, Cap,” Iron Man said, voice sounding tired and strained. “Tony’s fine. He’s working, and not in any trouble. Everyone is safe. I promise.”

 _Tony?_ Steve thought. He glanced over at Bucky, who caught the unusual use of his first name, too.

“Can you get him to call us, at least? Something?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, let him know he owes us an explanation,” Bucky added.

Steve could hear Iron Man sigh. “No can do.  He wants to be left alone. I doubt he’s going to let me pull him away from whatever delicate work he’s in the middle of.”

“Well convince him, then,” Bucky demanded.

“I’ll do my best, but don’t count on it,” Iron Man said.

“I don't want your best, Iron Man. I want you to do it,” Bucky growled.

“We’ll give you some time to talk to him. Let him know we expect to hear from him within twelve hours, or the team’s going after him. The WHOLE team,” Steve added before switching off the radio.

“I’m going to throttle him,” Bucky said, glaring out the window. Iron Man had engaged his sonic repulsors and was rushing away from them in a blur, hopefully to use his head start to convince his boss to talk to them.

“Which one?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know. Iron Man. He can take it,” Bucky grumbled. “Then I’m gonna find Tony and lock him in his lab indefinitely. House arrest for the next decade.”

Steve sighed, hating to see Bucky so upset. He couldn’t argue, though, so he just said, “Something’s off. Iron Man wasn’t acting like himself.”

“No, he was being more of a dick than usual,” Bucky agreed uncharitably.

“He called Tony by his first name,” Steve pointed out.  “It sounded natural for him.”

“I heard,” Bucky said. “Do you think maybe he’s behind something –?”

“No,” Steve said firmly, sure he had a clear reading on Bucky’s mind. “No, I trust Iron Man with my life. He’d never do something to put Tony in danger.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he has it in him either,” Bucky agreed, though he sounded disappointed. Steve could empathize; right now, he wanted a target, not a puzzle.

“We’ll figure it out when we get back to the tower,” Steve said, reaching out to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed darkly. “There’d better be.”

They flew the last hour back to the tower in silence. Steve kept a sharp eye on the equipment, monitoring air traffic and radar, while Bucky kept his eyes on the sky. Both of them were trapped in their own minds, and Steve couldn’t bring himself to pull them out of it.

He had been really scared for Tony, he realized. He still was, no matter how much he trusted Iron Man. Tony was a real part of the Avengers, someone he wanted to protect and care for, just like his other teammates.

He tried not to dwell on it as they flew, but he would be devastated if anything happened to the inventor.

 

…

 

Almost the whole team was waiting for them when they landed. Bruce, Thor, Sam and Natasha stood ready in their uniforms, deceptively calm. Hawkeye was skulking a story up, sitting in a window and waiting to be called down. Even Col. Rhodes was there, standing beside Thor in his civvies – and that was interesting. They hadn’t expected to see him here, though Steve knew he’d always answer the call to help Tony if he was able.

The only one missing was Iron Man.

“What’s this all about?” Natasha asked, walking up to them as soon as they descended from the loading ramp. “First we get a call from you that Tony’s missing, then Iron Man tells us everything’s fine and disappears. He hasn’t come back yet.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Steve told her, low enough that it would be for her ears only.

He waded into the throng of superheroes, Bucky and Natasha both on his heels, and waited for them to gather around him. Only once Hawkeye sullenly jumped down to meet them did he speak. “So. Bucky and I went to Malibu today to see Tony,” he told them. “We had some personal business with him, and needed to speak face to face. Only, he wasn’t there, and he hasn’t been there in months, and his phone’s been turned off.”

“What?” Clint asked, half a dozen emotions rising flashing across his face, from surprise to anger, until he settled on concern.

“We don’t know where he is, but Iron Man caught us on the way home and told us he was safe. He doesn’t want to be contacted, but we’re still expecting to talk to him sometime between now and tomorrow morning.” Steve looked around. “I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. When we found out Tony wasn’t where we expected him to be, and his AI couldn’t give us answers, we made the best call we could, with the information we had.

“We’re standing by, for now. I’ll let you know when we’ve heard from him and can confirm he’s fine.”

“Where the Hell is Iron Man?” Bucky asked.

Steve looked at Rhodes, who put up his hands. “Hey, I’m not his handler. Or Tony’s. I can tell you that I’ve seen Tony, alive and well, recently. But beyond that? This is his mess.”

Steve met his eye. “You’re sure he’s ok?”

“One hundred percent,” Rhodes confirmed. “Unless something happened to him today, he’s fine.”

Steve nodded. There was no one who had the history that Rhodes had with Tony, or the proven track record of taking care of the inventor. If he couldn’t trust Colonel Rhodes, he couldn’t trust anyone.

“You heard the man, Avengers. Stand down,” he said. He looked around, catching Bucky’s mutinous eyes. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to find him and figure out what exactly he’s up to. It just means that we’re not in crisis mode. For now.”

Steve stalked into the tower, Bucky still on his heels, and made his way straight back to their room.

 

…

 

Steve collapsed in the couch, drained, as soon as the door was closed behind him, dropping his head into his hands. “What the Hell is going on, Buck?” he asked plaintively.

“Got me,” Bucky said, pacing around the room, all nervous energy.

“Something’s real off. What was Rhodes doing at the tower today? He’s never in the tower unless Tony –” Steve stopped, his mouth gaping a little.

“Unless Tony’s here,” Bucky confirmed.

“Rhodes implied that he saw Tony as recently as yesterday, right?” Steve said.

“If not today,” Bucky agreed. He stopped pacing and was staring straight at Steve.

“Tony’s in the tower,” Steve said.

“He’s in the tower alright. Hiding in his lab?” Bucky asked.

“Maybe,” Steve said. He sighed and started thinking back through the day – starting with why they had gone to Malibu to begin with. “I think this must have been his way or responding to Clint. He found a way to run away, but without leaving the tower.”

“Well it’s damn stupid,” Bucky said.

“At least he’s safe,” Steve told him. He reached out his hand for Bucky, and drew the other super soldier onto the couch with him. “So what do we do about him?”

Bucky shrugged. “Find him? Tell him what an idiot he is? Maybe start with what an idiot Hawkeye is?”

Steve smiled tentatively, feeling the tension and anger drain out of his body. His team was safe. Tony was safe. Bucky was here with him. They’d come up with some way to get to the inventor and talk to him.

It was all going to work out ok.

Steve thought about the strangeness of the situation. Tony lying about his whereabouts, long term. Iron Man showing up at the quinjet, so insistent that they call off the Avengers, yet so unwilling to tell them anything. Iron Man calling Tony by his name as if they had become more familiar, then not being at the tower when they showed up.

“Iron Man’s been helping him,” Steve pointed out. “He has to have been.”

Bucky shook his head. “Something still doesn’t add up there. He’s been acting off. Can’t really put my finger on it, but your Iron Man’s been off since Tony left.”

“He’s been avoiding me,” Steve said, and the words still stung. He put his hand on Bucky’s knee, needing to feel his solid presence. “I kind of expected that.”

“Nah, it’s not that,” Bucky said. “He’s avoiding everyone, but especially me, too. He hasn’t said more than two words to me if he could help it. It’s like he rejected me, too.”

Steve’s eyes popped at that. He hadn’t noticed it before, but thinking back, Bucky was right. Iron Man _had_ been avoiding both of them.

“Do you think maybe they’re together?” Bucky asked miserably.

Steve shook his head. “Maybe – but something’s missing there. It wouldn’t explain him running away after his conversation with Clint, or you. Not unless it happened in the week since.”

“No,” Bucky said, and Steve could see his eyes go distant, remembering something. “No, there’s no way he went and fell for someone else in the past week.”

 “So what is it?” he asked instead.

Bucky sat there, shoulders hunched and eyebrows knit together. “Why would he be avoiding me, too? Because of you?”

Steve thought back to that night with Iron Man: how he had talked, like his whole world was words. How he had lost so many inches when he took off the boots. How unexpectedly small and lithe his frame was. He remembered Thor’s words, that there wasn’t a trick Tony and Iron Man could play that the god of thunder couldn’t see through, and how silent he had been on the subject of Tony’s absence otherwise.

He bit his bottom lip, wondering if he could even say it. He had always tried so hard to keep himself from trying to guess Iron Man’s identity – he had always wanted to respect him, and his privacy. But now that he thought of it, it was impossible not to see.

They were almost never seen together, which was strange enough for a bodyguard and employer. Rhodes treated them both the same, whenever he saw them. They always seemed to know far more about the other than they should, even given their professional relationship.

If it was true, what did that mean for Steve and Bucky? Steve was already half in love with Iron Man, and if anything, the prospect of Tony being under the mask made him _more_ attractive, not less. He knew Tony, recognized his empathy and care. He respected him. More than that, Tony was clever and mesmerizing, and had done so much for Bucky – Steve could never thank him enough for everything he’d done to usher along his recovery.

Bucky was already in love with him, he knew.

“Either stop thinking so loud, or tell me what’s on your mind, Rogers,” Bucky growled, clearly annoyed.

“Bucky,” he said slowly. “Tell me if I’m crazy. But could Tony be Iron Man?”

Bucky’s head snapped sideways to stare at him, eyes wide. “He can’t be,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“Think about it, Buck,” Steve said. He watched, silently, as his boyfriend came to what must have been all the same conclusions as he had.

“All this time, he’s been lying?” Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged. “Since before the Avengers, if it’s true. He must have had a good reason.”

“So you’re telling me, you and I fell for the same guy, we both took him to bed, then we both got shot down when we asked him to be our fella?” Bucky asked incredulously.

“Because he had secrets he couldn’t tell us, in both cases,” Steve said. He thought back to Bucky’s description of his conversation with Tony, and then his own with Iron Man. It all made sense from this point of view.

“It can’t be,” Bucky said, still a bit in shock.

“I can’t think of anything else that makes as much sense,” Steve replied. “I’m all ears if you can.”

Bucky shook his head. “So what do we do with this?” His stormy blue eyes met Steve’s. “Really, what do _you_ do with this, first? I’ve known the fella I’m after. Are you still – if Tony’s Iron Man, would you still want him?”

Steve smiled for what felt like the first time that day. “Yeah, I think I might want him more, knowing who he is,” he confessed. “I like the idea of sharing with you.”

“Is that so?” Bucky asked, one eyebrow arching with interest.

“We’d have to convince him, first,” Steve reminded him.

“We have to catch him first,” Bucky said, but he was smirking now, clearly excited by the chase.

“Think he’ll let us?” Steve asked.

Bucky’s grin grew wider, almost feral. Steve loved that grin. It made him to kiss it off him, or press him down into the couch and fight for dominance. “He won’t stand a chance if he doesn’t see us coming.”

Steve leaned over and kissed the smirk off Bucky’s face. Bucky met him halfway, letting the anxiety and worry of the day melt away into lust and hunger.

“We have to talk to him,” Bucky said, pulling back a few inches.

“Alright,” Steve said, pulling back. “Together. We’ll find him and talk to him. But what do we say?”

Bucky shrugged. “The truth?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reveal!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR AN ANXIETY ATTACK.
> 
> Full disclosure: I have social anxiety and get them on rare occasion. This is about as close to a real description of them as I've ever written, and it definitely messed with my head for a few days when I first wrote it. Reading back, I didn't find it triggering.....but take care of yourselves nonetheless.
> 
> I've noted the beginning and end of the attack itself with a TW. Better safe than sorry, right?

Tony locked himself in his workshop as soon as he got back to the tower.

He took a back way in, through the garage downstairs and up two different elevators in the suit so no one from SI or the Avengers would see him.

He didn’t even let Rhodey know he was back. Didn’t turn on his phone – didn’t need to know how many missed calls or messages he had.

He just needed to hide.

He didn’t even take the armor off when he got in – it felt good to be in it, nowadays. It felt like safety, a cocoon he could wrap himself in. A mask he could wear – so he could be a person who was not _Tony Stark_.

Everything was crashing down around him. Steve and Bucky knew he had lied. The Avengers were going to be looking for him. They were going to know he had lied, and they weren’t going to let it go until they knew _why._

How were they ever going to trust him again? How were they going to trust _Iron Man_?

They were going to move out of the tower, most likely. They’d probably – maybe – still accept Tony’s financial support and tech, but they weren’t going to want to live with him.  Steve and Bucky were never going to talk to him again; not as Tony or Iron Man.

He could feel the panic rising up in his chest like a wave: wild and dangerous. He took a few deep breaths, concentrated on counting up as he breathed in and down as he breathed out.   

Dum-E, Butterfingers and U crowded around him when he sat on the floor in the armor.

“It’s ok, guys,” he said, reaching out to touch their support arms. He touched the gauntlet control to retract the thing, then touched the solid structures with his bare fingertips. The cool metal grounded him, made it a little easier to breath. “Daddy’s ok. Just need a minute.”

 _Why am I like this?_ He asked himself, wondering why he had thought of this ruse in the first place. Why hadn’t he just resolved to stay here as Tony – why did he have to go the extra mile and pretend to run away completely?

Tony leaned back against his workbench, faceplate up and legs stretched out in front of him. One knee was up, and he rested his wrist on it. He looked around, glad he didn’t keep any alcohol in the workshop anymore, just in the penthouse. He needed a drink – but he also very much needed not to get himself drunk.

“What am I going to do?” he asked the bot nearest to his head, Dum-E. Dum-E tilted his mechanical eye at him quizzically, then bumped him in the shoulder.

Tony smiled at him fondly.  “Yeah, you’re right, I should probably start by taking the armor off.” He lifted a hand to catch the manual armor release, then thought the better of it. He wasn’t ready to give up the safety of the suit. Not yet.

“Actually, how about I stay here for a few minutes, then go take it off at its station?” he asked the bot. “Then we don’t have to put it away after.”

Dum-E seemed mollified by that idea. He reached up to the top of the workbench, then came back holding a tablet. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Tony asked, taking it from the bot before he dropped it or broke it.

Dum-E reached out again, and this time came back with a stylus.

“Are you telling me I need to get some work done?” he asked suspiciously.

The bot reached up a third time, and Tony found himself handed an empty coffee cup.

“I believe Dum-E is trying to give you things he thinks will bring you pleasure, Sir,” JARVIS told him.

And wasn’t that just the sweetest thing? No wonder Tony preferred bots to humans.

“Thank you,” Tony said, taking the cup and putting it down on the floor beside him. “I’m ok. If you want to make me feel better, how about you get a pot of coffee on?”

The bot happily turned to go take care of his new duty, leaving Tony with just Butterfingers and U. While they were just as present, both of them were more subdued than Tony’s oldest bot, and gave him a bit more space to breathe.

Tony sat there with them for a few minutes, just concentrating on his breathing while he watched his bots roll around him curiously. Without anything to do, they mostly circled, or swiveled their support struts so they could observe him from multiple angles. It was comforting, having them there, watching him.

He stayed there even after Dum-E brought him a steaming cup of fresh black coffee. He was so emotionally raw, he didn’t know what to do. So he decided to do nothing.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Sir, but Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes are on the way down to the lab,” JARVIS said after some time – who knows how long? –had passed. “It does not seem as though they will be willing to be kept out of the lab.”

“We’re on lockdown here, right, JARVIS?” Tony asked, standing up. He put down the mostly-full cup, then reached up to flick down the faceplate on the suit.

“Yes, but both the Captain and the Sergeant seem quite determined,” JARVIS told him dryly. That was easily translated: who knew whether or not the workshop security would hold up against Captain America _and_ the Winter Soldier.

“Of course,” Tony muttered. As he tried to decide whether he wanted to face them as Tony Stark or Iron Man, he asked, “I don’t suppose there’s enough time for me to get out of the suit, is there? Should I be coming up with an excuse for Iron Man to be in the workshop?”

“There is a non-zero chance that they could walk in on the process,” JARVIS confirmed.

“And if I wanted to go to the penthouse before they got here?”

“Master Rhodes is up there, reading and waiting for you. I believe he’s planning to try to convince you to talk to the Avengers as soon as you get there.”

Tony sighed. Iron Man it was. He grabbed his coffee and went to the kitchenette to find a metal straw.

“Let them in when they get here,” he said, leaning against the counter in what he hoped was a natural position, sipping at his coffee far more awkwardly than it looked.

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS replied. He sounded smug, and Tony just barely stopped himself from calling him out on it. With his luck, the super soldiers would walk in mid-rant, and then they’d really recognize him.

The door slid open a minute later, and Steve and Bucky marched through it determinedly. They moved like a single creature, walking straight to the overstuffed couch Tony kept in the workshop and sitting down, watching him the whole time.

“We need to talk,” Steve said, always direct and focused on his mission.

“Time to get some things out in the open, doll,” Bucky agreed.

Tony raised an eyebrow behind the faceplate. Bucky didn’t call Iron Man doll. Bucky only used that name for a handful of people: Steve, Pepper, Darcy, _Tony_.

Steve looked at him with those expressive, earnest eyes. “Tony, we know –“

 

>>>>>>>>>>  **TW**  <<<<<<<<<<

 

Whatever else Steve had to say, it was lost to Tony. His vision narrowed to the center of the HUD in front of him, and his chest constricted suddenly. There was a crash as his hand spasmed, opening up enough to let the coffee mug fall fatally to the floor. _They knew._

“JARVIS, lock the suit,” he choked out as the panic clawed its way up his throat, making it hard to breathe. JARVIS would know what to do. He wouldn’t let those words through the voice modulators for the soldiers to hear. He would lock the suit’s joints, letting it hold him up and steady, no matter that his knees were giving out and his whole torso felt like it was going to collapse in on itself.

Tony gasped uselessly for breath, his entire world collapsing down into the last two words he heard from Steve.

 _We know. We know. We know_.

Tony was going to be kicked off the team. Worse – kicked out of their _lives_. His life as an Avenger was over. His life as he knew it was over.

 _We know_.

Everything he had worked for was gone. No one was going to let him be an Avenger.

His hands were vibrating against the armor, though the metal suit wasn’t letting him move much. He pressed his fingertips down into the metal, desperately – _despairingly_ – looking for something to ground him as he fought to breathe.

Vaguely, he heard voices near him, coming from just outside the suit, loud and insistent. JARVIS was calling him, though his voice felt far away. “Sir? Sir, it’s Tuesday, May 18, 2016, 8:57 PM. You’re in your workshop –“

Tony focused on the words, to the familiar cadence he woke up to far too often in recent years. JARVIS’s voice was a calm constant, the one being who would never abandon him, whom he need not fear repudiation from.

JARVIS was there. He always had him. He was not going to die. He just needed to remember how to _breathe._

“Sir, I’ve increased the oxygen in your suit by ten percent,” JARVIS told him, voice heavy with artificial empathy. “You have all the air you need. You’re safe in the armor.”

Finally, Tony took a gasping breath. He felt hollow, destitute, but JARVIS was right: he had air. His throat opened marginally, and his vibrating muscles began to relax.

 

>>>>>>>>>> **TW** <<<<<<<<<<

 

He heard Bucky’s voice first, harsh and loud enough that Tony flinched away, sure his anxiety would be triggered again if he let it too close. “JARVIS, I swear to god, if you don’t get him out of this tin can  _right now_ I’m going to break him out!”

“It’s ok,” he said, voice rough and broken. He took another breath, steadying himself against the first wave of fatigue. “It’s alright,” he said again, a little stronger this time. “I’m alright. Just need a minute.”

He opened eyes he didn’t realize he had closed and looked out through the HUD. Butterfingers, Dum-E and U were swarming him again, but now they were weaving their way around the two super soldiers who had both rushed to him. Steve had one hand on the armor’s left shoulder plate, looking at him with concern. Bucky just looked lost.

“I need some space,” he growled out, feeling claustrophobic. “I need you to leave.”

Steve shook his head. “We can’t do that,” he said softly. “Not until we know you’re alright.”

Bucky leaned in, soulful eyes staring straight into the faceplate’s glowing eyes. “Can you – can you please open this thing up, doll? Let us see you’re ok in there?” he asked, voice calmer now, though no less worried.  “You scared us.”

Tony’s breath caught in his throat. Why were they being so nice to him? Knowing it was _him_.

Tony shook his head. How could they – why would they possibly think he was going to open his faceplate?

“Please?” Steve prodded.

When Tony didn’t answer, Bucky continued. “Come on, we just want to make sure you’re alright. You dropped your coffee, then you stopped responding at all, and Jarvis wouldn’t tell us what was happening with you. We’re worried.”

Tony opened his mouth to deny them, but then he caught the look in Bucky’s eyes. The Winter Soldier was scared, really scared. And just a little desperate.

“Sir, I’m sure the Captain and Sergeant will not leave until they see your face,” JARVIS said, low in his ear. “By my analysis, it will do far more harm than good to try to send them away again.”

He sighed, knowing his AI was right, but not really ready to come grips with that knowledge.

“I believe it’s time to come out of the shadows, Sir,” JARVIS urged.

Tony reached up, slowly and deliberately, and pressed the hidden release on his helmet. The faceplate popped up, putting him face-to-face with Bucky, defenseless and raw. “Doll,” Bucky breathed, reaching out to put his fingers on Tony’s face. Tony wanted to pull away – to hide – but he found himself frozen in place.

“Tony,” Steve said, pushing in close next to Bucky. The two were _right there_ , and they _knew_. Tony needed room to breathe.

“Let me get out of this,” he said, defeat so clear in his voice even he couldn’t deny it.

When they didn’t move, he nodded toward the suit dock.

Bucky and Steve both jumped back, giving Tony space to walk dejectedly toward the dock. He positioned himself standing away from them when he got there, needing the illusion of privacy. He closed his eyes and just concentrated on breathing as the suit opened itself up, revealing him to the world.

Maybe, if he was lucky, the Brooklyn boys would take a hint and leave.

Tony slumped over without the strong support of the armor around him. He was exhausted – first from lack of sleep, and second from the anxiety attack that had ripped through him. He shivered in his tee-shirt and jeans.

“JARVIS, turn the heat up in here, will you?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

When he finally stepped out of the suit and turned around, armorless, both super soldiers were watching him.

“Tony,” Steve said again, voice softer than it should have been. “I think we need to talk.”

“Yeah, probably,” Tony agreed wearily. “Just, can it wait?”

Steve’s eyes got hard and Tony braced himself for the lecture he knew was coming. He was still trembling, and more than a little afraid his knees would give out, but he could probably make it through Steve’s need to voice his disappointment. He glanced around the workshop, looking for a chair or something he could get to without being too obvious about it.

“Yeah,” Bucky said before Steve could open his mouth. “Yeah, how about you sit down. Stevie, you want to get Tony a glass of water?”

Suddenly the Winter Soldier was _there_ , putting his hand on Tony’s shoulder and guiding him to the couch. Tony let himself be pushed, too tired and emotionally strained to do anything else. He gently pushed Tony down in the middle, then sat beside him with one leg curled under him so he could face Tony on the couch. Then Bucky pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around Tony’s shoulders silently.

Steve sat on the other side, mirroring Bucky’s position, and pressed a glass of water into Tony’s hands. Tony sipped at it gratefully, suddenly aware of how parched he was.

Why were they being so nice to him?

“Because we’re your friends? And we’re worried about you?” Steve suggested. And damn…Tony hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Also, I could have probably phrased that in a way that wouldn’t have freaked you out quite so much.”

“You think?” Bucky asked, giving Steve an unimpressed look.

Tony put his head in his hand and rubbed his forehead, forcing himself to process everything. They knew he was Iron Man. They also at least strongly suspected his anxiety attack. Eventually, all the Avengers – and probably the NSA, among others– would know who exactly piloted the suit, and there was only one possible outcome to that.

“We don’t need to talk about it,” he said eventually, raising his head just enough to stare at Dum-E, who was predictably hovering anxiously in front of him. “I’ll get my stuff together, get the bots and the workshop packed up, move back to Malibu. For real this time. The Avengers should have the tower.”

 “Tony, what are you talking about?” Steve asked, hand suddenly on his knee.

Tony turned his head to look at him, one eyebrow raised incredulously. “Look, I know, alright. We don’t have to drag this out. You don’t need to tell me how disappointed you are to find me in the mask, or how fucked up it was for me to sleep with both of you. _I know_. So let’s skip the hard talks and just – I don’t know. Get on with it.”

“Tony, no,” Bucky said. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Least of all with us.”

“How can you possibly say that?” Tony asked.

“Hey, listen to me,” Steve said, and Tony turned toward him. “I can’t say I understand why you didn’t tell us before, but I’m sure you had your reasons. I’d love for you to tell us at some point, but that doesn’t have to be now,” the super soldier told him. “But there’s no –“ he made a breathy little sound of frustration. “I can’t even fathom why you’d think you’d have to move out of your own tower over this.”

Tony gaped at him.  “Cap. _I’m Iron Man_. Me. Tony Stark.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I told you. We figured that out,” he said softly.

“There’s only been one restriction on Iron Man’s involvement in the Avengers until now,” Tony reminded him. “From Fury himself: Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no.”

Steve looked rather unconvinced. “I read that report,” he said. “If I recall it was dated sometime about five years ago, well before Tony Stark saved New York from an atomic bomb, or destroyed about a million doom bots, took out a handful of international terrorists, or – I don’t know? – gave the Avengers a home. It was also before I took lead of this team.”

“What he’s saying is, that report is a load of shit, and we all know it by now,” Bucky added. “And the people who made those decisions are no longer in charge.”

Tony stared at them, incredulous. “You’re telling me you, the team, and the public would be ok with _me_ on the Avengers?”

“I don’t really care much what the public thinks, but yes,” Steve said, face serious and just a little sad. “Of course we want you on the team. Even more, knowing who you are under the mask. Not less.”

“Even after we – after I had sex with you without telling you who I was?” Tony asked, forcing himself to say the words.

Steve moved to take Tony’s hand in his. “Tony, I knew exactly what I was asking for when I approached Iron Man – you – about that. I knew you had your secrets, and I decided I wanted to try anyway. And now that I know? I’m glad it was you.”

“You’re – ?” Tony started, gaping at Steve. “No you’re not. You can’t be.”

“I am,” Steve told him. “I really am, Tony. Iron Man has been my best friend for years. I’ve have a crush on him almost since I came out of the ice, and I –“ his voice faltered for a moment. “I think I’ve fallen in love with him. He’s strong and intuitive and a leader who knows how to think on his feet. Tony Stark is the fella who supports everything I do, who helped bring my Bucky back to me. He’s smart and generous and quietly takes care of everyone around him. How could I not be thrilled to find out you’re the same person?”

“Works out well, doesn’t it?” Bucky asked, taking Tony’s other hand. “The fella I’m sweet on just so happens to also be the fella Steve’s sweet on. Fortuitous.”

“What?” Tony asked. This was too much. He felt like he was drowning here, between the two of them.

“You see, I ain’t half in love with you, too,” Bucky continued. “I know you said you didn’t want this when there were secrets between us, but I’m hoping you give it another thought.”

Tony closed his eyes, not sure he was hearing them right. Both of them _were in love with him_? And they wanted –?

He opened his eyes to see Steve and Bucky catching each other’s eyes around Tony’s head. “Well, you know how we both asked you to date us separately when we thought you were two different people?” Steve asked. “We know it’s a long shot, but we’d still like to do that, if you’re interested. If anything’s changed now that we know. But together this time. That’s why we came down here in the first place.”

Tony looked between the two of them, shock clear across his face. He wanted – of course he wanted it – but he was still on the backend of an anxiety attack, and he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. Hell, half of him was convinced he was hallucinating this entire conversation. “I – I don’t know if I can even process that right now, Cap,” he said eventually.

“You don’t have to, doll,” Bucky told him, quick and clearly nervous. “It’s been a stressful day. Can we – can we take you up to the penthouse, make sure you get settled in ok? You should get some rest. We can talk later.”

Tony didn’t even know if he wanted to go upstairs. Despite the weight of their conversation, he liked being on the couch, warmly tucked between the two of them. It felt natural – nice. But they were right; it had been a long, stressful day, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere safe.

“Yeah, let me think about it,” Tony told them. He thought for a moment about letting them come up with him, about what might happen if he did. It was a terrible idea; even he could see that. “I – Rhodey’s upstairs, waiting for me. I’m surprised he hasn’t come down here to give me his opinion on Iron Man’s performance today yet.”

“He knew?” Steve asked.

“Of course he knew,” Tony said. “He’s Iron Patriot. How could he not know? Him, Pepper, Happy and now the two of you are the only ones who know.”

“We’re not going to tell anyone, doll,” Bucky promised. Tony would have laughed at the glare Steve levied at him, if he himself weren’t so surprised by the words. “We want everyone to know – you deserve to be on the Avengers yourself, without any secrets – but it’s not our place to tell.”

Steve pressed his lips together for a moment, thinking, before adding, “I can’t lie to the team for you. If you don’t want them to know, we’ll have to talk about how that will work.” He squeezed the hand he was still holding. “But you really should tell them, Tony. They deserve to know who their teammate is. And Bucky’s right, you deserve to be recognized as Iron Man.”

Tony closed his eyes and took a breath. Those were words he had never expected to hear, and from Captain America least of all. Maybe Tony Stark could be an Avenger. He gave Steve a small, hesitant smile. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll think about that, too.”

He stood up, legs still shaky beneath him. He waved his hands widely in a show of bravado, but the super soldiers could clearly see right through him. “And on that note, I’m heading upstairs. To think. And sleep.”

“Sleep first, I hope,” Bucky said, standing up and putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. “You need to take care of yourself better.”

“No promises,” Tony said, plastering on his most charming press smile.

“We’ll talk tomorrow?” Steve asked. “About the team, I mean. Take all the time you need for the other thing.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He reached up and pat Bucky’s warm hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Then, like a coward, he turned around and walked toward his private the elevator as fast as his legs would take him. He was lucky; Steve and Bucky still didn’t know the elevator was there, and by the time they realized he was leaving without letting them ride up with him, the doors were already closing.

“Pause the elevator, J,” he said as soon as it had moved past the workshop floor.

He leaned back against the wall, taking a minute alone to recover.

“Any way you can get Rhodey to leave me alone about today?” Tony asked when he felt more like himself again.

“I’m afraid that is not within my power, Sir,” JARVIS told him.

Tony rolled his eyes, knowing his AI was right. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Onward and upward, J.”

 

…

 

True to JARVIS’s word, Rhodey was waiting for Tony when he got to the penthouse. It took him all of thirty seconds to look Tony over and realize something was wrong.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, launching himself off the couch where he was reading from a tablet and moving to meet Tony where he stood.

“They know. I didn’t tell them, they figured it out,” Tony told him, not even trying to hide the exhaustion in his voice. “They – they don’t want me off the team. They don’t care. They thought – they seemed to be happy about it.”

Rhodey’s smile always could light up a room, and no less so now. “That’s good,” he said. “I told you it was stupid to keep them all in the dark! Of course they don’t want you off the team!” He looked Tony over, taking in his expression, his hunched shoulders and weary eyes. He reached out and put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “That is good, right?”

“Yeah, platypus, that’s good,” Tony agreed wearily, taking a few slow steps forward. Rhodey automatically shifted so his arm was around Tony’s shoulders, silently supporting him. Tony leaned into the familiar touch.

Tony made his way to the couch and plopped down. He really should go to bed, but he couldn’t yet. He was exhausted, but his body was still working through too much adrenaline to sleep.

“They want me to tell the rest of the team,” Tony said hollowly as Rhodey took a seat beside him. “They want me on the team, and they want everyone to know.” He paused, not sure how to say the rest. “They want _me_. Both of them. Romantically.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “Alright. What do you want?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t even know right now. Cuddles from my honeybear?”

Rhodey smiled at him fondly, but didn’t move or argue when Tony slid down the couch to put his head in Rhodey’s lap. He even started to comb his fingers through Tony's hair, forcing the inventor to relax. “Much as I like your company, I’m not sure I’m the answer to your problems right now, Tones.”

Tony frowned. “I don’t know how the team will react, but I should probably tell them. Steve & Bucky promised not to out me, but Steve also said he can’t lie for me. So there’s that.”

“Alright, that’s a start,” Rhodey said cajolingly.

“I don’t want to think about the rest now,” Tony told him. He was feeling better, lying there with his best friend. His breath came easier, and his brain felt clearer. “I want them. Sex would be – well, you can imagine what sex would be like.”

“Please, spare me any and all details,” Rhodey begged, making Tony chuckle.

“Yeah, not sure you’re supposed to kiss and tell with Captain America,” Tony said, just to make Rhodey grimace. “But beyond sex? I don’t know. I’m bad enough at relationships with one person.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not worth a shot,” Rhodey pointed out.

“It might when it’s teammates,” Tony said. He looked up at Rhodey, suddenly very serious. “I had another anxiety attack,” he confessed. “When Steve said he knew. I was in the armor at the time, so who knows what they think happened, but they knew I wasn’t alright. How could they date someone like that?”

“Tony, you know you don’t have to be perfect to be in a relationship, right?” Rhodey asked, putting his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “All of us have scars on this team.”

Tony shook his head and sat up. “I hear what you’re saying, Rhodes, but I feel like you’re missing the point,” he said, keeping his voice light.  “Also, I’m pretty sure I haven’t slept more than an hour or two in about thirty hours, so I should probably do something about that.”

“Forty-two hours, actually, Sir,” JARVIS chimed in.

“Thanks, J, Rhodey really needed that information,” Tony said sarcastically. He turned to look at his best friend’s frown. “You staying here tonight? Your usual room?”

Rhodey made that face like he was going to drag the conversation out more, but then just sighed. “Yeah, you at least owe me breakfast for all the shit you pulled today.”

Tony flashed him a smile. “Of course, honeybear. Whatever you want.”

Rhodey shook his head and walked past Tony toward the guest room. “Good night, Tony. Get some real sleep, will you?”

“I’ll do my best,” Tony said, for once completely honest.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony invites Steve and Bucky to dinner, to talk. A bit more goes on than he originally planned.

Bucky woke up with Steve curled around him like an octopus.

His boyfriend was awake – there was no way Steve was still sleeping at nearly nine in the morning – so he ran his right hand through his hair and leaned down to kiss his head. “What’s up, babe?” he asked.

Steve rubbed his cheek against Bucky’s chest, vulnerable like he never was with the rest of the world. “’M worried about him, Buck,” Steve said. “I didn’t like leaving him like that. I knew Tony had scars, but I didn’t really realize what he was like under all that armor. Not like that.”

Bucky hummed at him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close. “Yeah, me, too,” he said. When he closed his eyes, he saw Tony’s face, still surrounded by the Iron Man armor, looking scared and raw in a way Bucky understood far too well. “Ball’s in his court now, though.”

“I guess, so,” Steve said, sounding miserable.

Bucky wished he could say something to make Steve feel better, but he knew as well as anyone could how unpredictable fear could make a man. He never had been good at lying just to spare someone’s feelings, so he kept his mouth shut.

Apparently, just his presence was enough, though. After a couple of minutes, Steve backed away and stretched.

Bucky took the chance to roll off the bed and stand up, needing to escape to the bathroom. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned grumpily. Steve might be a morning person, but he definitely was not.

“Excuse me, Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said suddenly. Bucky was proud that he didn’t even flinch when he heard the prim voice from the ceiling anymore. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Sir has requested that you join him for dinner tonight in his suite. Would you both be available at seven this evening?”

And wasn’t that something? Tony wasn’t running like Bucky had expected. He was inviting them into his home, instead.

“Please tell Tony we’ll be happy to join him tonight,” Steve said politely. “Thank you Jarvis.”

Bucky just looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Steve gave a tentative smile. “Hopefully that means he figured something out,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Bucky smiled, hopeful. “I think it does.”

 

…

 

Tony paced nervously as he waited for Bucky and Steve. He didn’t know why he had let Rhodey talk him into this over breakfast – especially since Rhodey had to leave almost as soon as they had finished eating. By then, the damage was done, and JARVIS had already contacted the super soldiers.

He had had JARVIS order delivery from one of Steve’s favorite New York restaurants, and the table was set with three of the most gourmet meatball dishes he had ever seen. Although the super soldiers couldn’t metabolize it, he had put out wine as well, knowing he would need it for his own nerves.

JARVIS didn’t need to warn him of their approach; Tony saw the light come on above his elevator before the doors opened. He took up a casual stance near the table, hoping his nervousness wouldn’t show.

Steve and Bucky were both dressed casually, though it was clear they had made an effort. Bucky was in the same dark fitted jeans he had worn the last time he was in the penthouse, but he was in a merlot sweater that looked lush and decadent against his complexion. Steve wore khakis with a similar sweater, though the dark blue of his highlighted his bright blue eyes and blond hair. Tony didn’t think anyone could blame him for staring at the two of them.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve said as they walked in. “How are you?”

“Hey Cap, Bucky,” Tony greeted them with a broad press smile. “Better, thanks.” He spread out his arm, moving on from _that_ topic as quickly as possible. “Have a seat. I think I got your favorites, but blame JARVIS if I got it wrong.”

 Bucky looked down, his hair framing his face to make it look darker and more serious. “You sure you’re good, Tones?”

Tony smiled wider, willing them to be convinced. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Have a seat. I asked you here for dinner didn’t I?”

They both gave him suspicious looks, but they took their seats, Steve in front of the old fashion meatball parmigiana sub, and Bucky in front of an eggplant ‘meatball’ dish with mushroom sauce – because of course the Winter Soldier would turn out to be a foodie. Tony sat down in front of his own chicken meatball and pesto dish, which he had let JARVIS choose without any of his input. It wasn’t like he was going to taste much of it anyway, not with the conversation he had looming before him.

“This is great,” Steve said, expression warm and soothing. “Thanks, Tony.”

“Yeah, thanks. JARVIS got everything perfect,” Bucky agreed.

“You’re welcome,” Tony said. He poured a glass of wine for each of them, then took a healthy sip of his own. “I thought – well, I wanted to talk to you. About last night.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, face open and sweet and dammit Tony could see exactly what he was doing, but that didn’t make it any less effective. Steve was using every tool at his disposal to get Tony to relax, and it was working. Or maybe it was the wine working.

“Uh, yeah,” Tony replied. “I thought about it – or, actually, more precisely, I talked to Rhodey about it – and I think you were right. About the team, I mean. They deserve to know.” He took another, smaller sip of wine. “Only the team, of course – I don’t want the public to know, and if I trusted the NCS or the Joint Chiefs not to use this against Stark Industries, they’d know by now. Also, Pepper would probably have my hide if I told them without consulting her – no matter how much she’s pushed me to come out so far.”

“That’s great, Tony!” Bucky said. “No one cares about the rest of them, but the team should know. They should know it’s you saving their asses, or sitting down with them for movie nights.”

Tony managed to give Bucky a small, sincere smile, trying to believe him. Not that he would back out – he was going through with this, of course – but he was still half certain the Captain would have a mutiny on his hands if he tried to keep Iron Man on the team once they knew who he was.

“How were you planning on telling them?” Steve asked. “We’ll be there with you, if you want.”

“I thought I’d tell them as a group,” Tony replied hesitantly. “Tomorrow, over dinner. Thought I would make mom’s scampi. I haven’t had that recipe in ages. Maybe they’ll be less likely to get all stabby if I feed them.”

“Nobody’s going to get stabby, Tony,” Steve said. Bucky grunted, and Tony could read the dark look in his eyes easily: if anyone _did_ , they would be up against the Winter Soldier.

“Okay, maybe not stabby,” Tony conceded, “but you’ve gotta admit, you two are taking this better than expected.”

“Only because you have pretty low expectations, doll,” Bucky told him. “Trust us, yeah? No one’s going to take this poorly.”

Tony took a bite of his dinner, using it as an excuse to avoid answering while he thought about it. They were probably right about Thor and Sam, at least. They wouldn’t care. Who knew how Bruce and Natasha would react, though, and Clint – well, Clint had been clear enough about his feelings when he thought Tony had just slept with Bucky. He was going to put two and two together real fast when he realized exactly what Tony had done with both of them.

“How about this?” he asked. “I agree to respect your optimism, and you agree to be ready to back me up if things get ugly?”

“I think we can do that.” Bucky reached out with his right hand and squeezed Tony’s arm almost casually. Flesh or not, Tony could feel the electric shock through it even after Bucky had pulled back, and his mind flashed back to the other part of their conversation last night. He took another bite, not ready to really think about that yet.

“So, now that that’s out of the way: what have I missed in Avengers Tower today?” Tony asked, moving the conversation back to something safe.

He relaxed as they told him about Sam and Clint’s antics in the training room this afternoon, and how Natasha had accidentally broke it up by coming in and methodically triggering and disabling every booby trap they had set, thinking it was a training exercise. It was wonderful to see them smiling and casually reaching out to touch each other across from him as they laughed.  He loved watching them, no matter how much it made his heart ache. He had no place in the middle of _that_.

There was no way he was going to come out of this thing whole – but he had known that from the start, hadn’t he?

When they finished eating, Tony piled up their plates to bring to the kitchen, leaving them in the sink for someone else to deal with later. When he turned to make his way back to the super soldiers, he ran straight into a wall of muscle and soft blue cashmere.

“Sorry, Tony,” Steve said, grabbing his arm to steady him. “I was just helping with the glasses.” He reached around Tony to place said glasses in the sink with the plates.

“Geeze, make some noise, will you?” Tony groused, exceptionally aware of just how close the two of them were standing, and how hot Steve’s hand felt against his arm.

“Yeah – yeah, I will,” Steve said, sounding oddly stunned. Tony looked up at him, wondering what could possibly be wrong.

“Whatcha thinking, Cap?” he asked, mouth dry as he was suddenly caught up in Steve’s bright blue eyes. Steve was staring at him like the most unexpected gift under a Christmas tree – like he was something special to be treasured and adored.

“Nothing,” Steve said, obviously lying. “I don’t want to push you.”

“Just say it,” Tony urged, needing to hear whatever drove the look he was seeing. “I’m not made of glass, Steve. I can handle it.”

“It’s just – I never got to kiss you,” Steve said softly. “And I want to –”

“ _Yes_ ,” Tony said, the word escaping his lips without his permission.

He didn’t have any time to rethink it. Steve’s lips were suddenly on his, kissing him hungrily. The hand on his shoulder moved up to his hair, and his other hand came around Tony’s waist, holding him close against the super soldier.

Steve kissed the way he did everything else: determinedly, and with his whole heart behind it. Tony could drown in that kiss and die a happy man.

And then Bucky was there, next to both of them. His metal hand was tracing down Tony’s spine, moving from Steve’s hand in his hair to the one around his waist and back up again, gears whirling and humming. “You ok with this, doll?” he asked in Tony’s ear.

 _No_ , Tony thought, knowing that this was a bad idea. But then again, the two of them had offered so much more, he thought maybe he could have this. At least this, tonight.

Tony pulled back from Steve just long enough to pant an impulsive, “Yeah.”

Steve used the hand on his head to guide Tony to kiss Bucky, inviting him between the two of them in the clearest way possible. The gesture was so trusting, and so incredibly unexpected, it made Tony’s stomach flip eagerly.

He _wanted_ this, but oh how he knew he was playing with fire.

Bucky’s kiss was exactly as he remembered it: sweet and tender, with an undercurrent of feral heat. Bucky pulled both of them close so Tony was pinned between him and Steve at either shoulder. Tony wove his fingers through each of the super soldiers’ hair, giving himself the leverage to keep pulling back from one and kiss the other, each one more heated than the last.

“You want to take this to the bedroom?” Bucky eventually voiced what Tony guessed they were all thinking while Tony and Steve kissed.

“Yes,” Tony breathed into Steve’s mouth.

“Please,” Steve answered.

Steve took Tony’s mouth back, kissing him deep and distractingly as he wound both arms around his backside.

Then he _lifted him_ as though he weighed nothing, guiding him to wrap his legs around his waist before he walked them to Tony’s bedroom. Bucky was already there, opening the double doors to let them in.

“I’m not sure if I should be turned on by this, or complaining that I can walk just fine on my own,” Tony remarked.

“Turned on,” Bucky told him with a hoarse, clearly affected voice. “Definitely turned on, doll.”

Tony chuckled and let himself relax as Steve put him down in the bed, spreading out bonelessly across it. He toed off his shoes, but otherwise kept his attention fully on the super soldiers in front of him.

Steve was already pulling off his shirt, showing off those miles and miles of muscles. He had lost his shoes and socks, and looked positively sinful in just low-slung khakis.

 Bucky was slower on the uptake, barefoot but otherwise clothed and staring at Steve as he disrobed.

He cocked his head and looked at Tony. “Like what you see?”

“I’d like it more if I could see you, too,” Tony said, because his mouth had a mind of its own. “Gonna give me a striptease?”

Bucky smirked and pulled his shirt off over his head, showing off his own abs. Tony looked over at Steve, who was just as interested in Bucky’s show as Tony was. When Tony stopped paying attention to him, Bucky paused and followed his eyes to look at Steve, standing there with pants undone and arms on his hips.

“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Steve said in his most polite Boy Scout voice. When Tony looked up, he was wearing the most guileless expression.  

Tony laughed. He couldn’t help it. Steve knew _exactly_ what he was doing. “Really, Rogers?”

Steve gave an adorable half shrug. “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to stop the show, would it?”

“Keep that up and I’m going to start humming The Star Spangled Man,” Tony warned.

Steve smiled back. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

“Want to try me?” Tony teased.

And then Steve was on him, kissing him again on the bed. “Don’t you dare,” he said between kisses, but there was no heat to it as they were both laughing.

The bed dipped as Bucky slipped in behind Tony, and they were all making out again.

Tony was leaning back, letting the two half-naked super soldiers kissing each other over his still clothed form, when Steve started running his hands up and down Tony’s torso. Before Tony could stop him, his fingers brushed the hard glass encasing of the arc reactor.

“Tony,” Steve said, pulling back from Bucky. “What’s that?” And damn, but his voice had gone from amused and turned on to concerned, and that was just _not_ what Tony wanted right now. He was about to have the best sex of his life – quite possibly the last sex of his life, because how could anything ever beat the _two_ of them in his bed? – and he did not need concern.

“It’s nothing, Cap,” he lied, and then he died a little inside when Steve looked at him with those disappointed eyes.

“What are you talking about, Stevie?” Bucky asked. “Tony has scars there, from Afghanistan –”

“That’s not a scar,” Steve said, and now he was frowning. Tony was not ready to deal with a frowning, sad Steve Rogers.

He sighed. There was no getting out of this, and really, they knew about Iron Man already. The arc reactor was dangerous – even the knowledge of it put Tony at risk – but he could trust them with it. He had only kept it from them because it would have revealed his secret identity too easily.

“If I show you, can we get this show back on the road?” he asked moodily.

Steve and Bucky exchanged looks, then nodded.

“You don’t need to tell us anything you’re not ready for,” Bucky told him.

“We just want you to trust us,” Steve said, following Bucky’s lead. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned by whatever you’re hiding.”

Tony started unbuttoning his dress shirt, exposing the black vest beneath it. Bucky had seen it before, but Steve’s eyes widened curiously.

He shot an apologetic look toward Bucky. “I – ah, I wasn’t lying when I told you about flashbacks,” he explained, tripping over his words inelegantly. “The scars are there, and they’re not pretty. But the thing is, when I was taken, the convoy I was in had hit an IED. I had – have – shrapnel in my chest, doing its damnedest to get to my heart.”

“Tony,” Steve breathed, putting out one hand as if to touch him. Tony shook his head, pulling away from him. He wouldn’t be able to get this out otherwise. He started opening the snaps that made their way down the sides of his ribcage, slowly revealing the light of the arc reactor.

“When I woke up there, I had a car battery attached to my chest, powering an electromagnet that kept the shrapnel at bay. These days, I use an arc reactor instead.” He gave a halfhearted smile, trying to show how he had made peace with the machinery in his chest. “It’s smaller. Easier to walk around with. Powers the suit.”

He slipped the half-shirt off his chest, leaving himself open and exposed in front of another person for the first time since Pepper had left him. He took a deep breath in anticipation, but surprisingly no panic rose up to tighten his throat or make his hands shake. He laid back on his elbows looking between Bucky and Steve on either side of him.

“How -?” Steve started, then cut himself off. “Tony, how long have you been carrying this alone?”

Tony shook his head. “Pepper knows. And Rhodey. Happy.”

“You don’t – I’m sorry I pressed you to tell us,” Steve apologized. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s alright, Cap,” Tony said, lifting a hand to press against Steve’s bare ribcage. “I’m ok. It’s just – it’s dangerous, letting people know. I’m not used to telling anyone. But I trust you.”

He looked at Bucky, whose quiet look of mixed anger and worry spoke volumes. If anyone could understand what Tony had been through, it was the Winter Soldier.

And that was not a thought anyone needed to dwell on.

“Alright, boys, I was promised that if I participated in show and tell, we’d get back to the naked fun times,” Tony quipped, voice as light as he could make it.

Bucky’s expression softened and he shook his head slightly, looking exasperated. He raised his hand to Tony’s chest. “Can I?” he asked, fingers hovering over him, echoing Tony’s own question about his scars, only weeks ago.

“Yeah,” Tony said, surprising himself again.

Bucky pressed his fingers to Tony’s ribs, then lowered his head and started kissing his chest almost reverently. He avoided direct contact with the arc reactor, instead tracing the scars around it. Tony threaded his fingers through his long hair, trying to pull him up to kiss him on the lips, but Bucky didn’t let him take control. Instead he simply lifted his head to meet Tony’s eyes. “Didn’t realize, doll. Knew you’d been through a lot, but I didn’t know –”

“Hey, none of that,” Tony chided. “It’s done, I’m safe. C’mon, I thought we were having fun here.”

Bucky gave him a sweet, obliging smile, then finally leaned over to kiss Tony on the lips again. It was a slow, languid kiss: deep and thorough. Tender. Tony remembered the hidden tender streak the super soldier had shown the first night they were together.

Tony could work with that. Bucky, at least, spoke the same language as he did.

Fingers threading through his hair again, he pulled Bucky in deeper, heating the kiss. When Bucky finally pulled back, Tony murmured against his mouth, “C’mon soldier, make me forget about all that.”

Bucky’s sharp, predatory smile told him he had won. “Stevie, he wants us to make him forget,” Bucky said conspiratorially. “Think we can get him to turn off that big brain of his?”

Tony could see the war waging in Steve’s head as Bucky spoke. Of course Steve wanted to do the right thing – _to do right by him_. Tony reached up and pulled Steve in for another kiss, putting his sharp tongue to work against the soldier’s. “I told you before, Steve, I’m not made of glass. And I’ll let you know if I need you to stop. I promise.”

Steve looked at Tony, then Bucky, still reluctant. He must have seen something comforting in Bucky’s face, though, because he nodded. “If you’re sure,” he said hesitantly.

“There are very few things I am more sure of than this,” Tony said. He counted off on his fingers, trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t trust Dum-E with a fire extinguisher. Never get on Pepper’s bad side. I need both of you naked, like, five minutes ago. That’s about all I know right now.”

Steve laughed, and Tony took that as permission. He pulled him in for another kiss, then let his hands roam down his torso. He used the flat of his nails against Steve’s ribs, then tweaked a nipple, making the super soldier gasp in appreciation.

Steve’s hands were suddenly on Tony’s pants, opening them and pushing them down. “This ok?”

“More than,” Tony said, watching as Steve lowered his head and started kissing and nipping at his stomach and hips.

Then Bucky was pulling his attention away, kissing him fiercely, like a man on a mission. Tony was almost completely distracted by him, not realizing what Steve was doing until the super soldier was at his hips, swallowing him down.

“You like that?” Bucky asked when Tony gasped into his mouth. He looked down, eyes dark and heated. “I could get used to that sight: seeing Stevie giving you a suckjob like his life depended on it. Think I like seeing it almost as much as I like feeling his mouth on me.”

“Yeah,” Tony grunted out, his brain short-circuiting. Between the absolutely sinful things Steve was doing with his mouth, and the mental image of Steve doing the same to Bucky, Tony was having difficulty with words.

He dropped his hands to Bucky’s pants. “Off,” he demanded, fumbling with the buttons. Bucky chuckled at him, then batted his hands away so he could do it himself. Tony was happy enough to watch as his _very_ large dick popped out of his boxer briefs, close enough to Steve to graze his cheek.

As if reading Tony’s mind, Steve looked up at with a mischievous expression, then pulled off Tony to suck Bucky down. He was only gone for a few seconds – not even long enough for Tony to do anything but stare hungrily at the sight of Steve on Bucky – before he pulled off his boyfriend and returned his attention to Tony.

“What do you want tonight, doll?” Bucky asked, pulling Tony’s attention back toward him – or at least as much as he could, considering the absolutely amazing blow job he was currently receiving. “Last time you let me call the shots. What do you want this time?”

Tony thought about it for a minute before answering, taking the time to kiss Bucky rough and desperately. “Want Steve to come in my mouth,” he panted out eventually. “Didn’t get a chance to – to taste him last time. Want your fingers while I’m taking care of him, then I want you to fuck me.”

Bucky’s eyes got bright and his smile wide. “Yeah, I think we can do that,” he agreed huskily. “Stevie, you hear that? Our fella here’s gonna give you the suckjob you’ve been dreaming about from him, then I’m gonna fuck him. You want that?”

Steve pulled off Tony, and the expression he gave them when he looked up was as desperate as Tony felt. “Yeah, Buck. Course I do.”

“Dreaming, really?” Tony asked, trying for a teasing tone, but ending up as more of a moan.

“You bet,” Bucky said wolfishly. “Our Stevie’s been so sad you couldn’t use that mouth on him. Especially after how well you took care of me, doll.”

Tony opened his mouth to answer just as Steve hallowed his cheeks and began sucking in earnest. “Ah – keep that up and this won’t last long,” he warned.

That only seemed to encourage the super soldier, who started bobbing his head quickly, all but fucking his own face on Tony’s dick. Bucky used his metal hand on Tony’s cheek to pull him in for a fierce kiss.

Tony moaned into his mouth and reached down to pull at Steve’s hair, trying to warn him that he was about to come while locked in against Bucky’s mouth.

Steve reached up and wound his fingers through Tony’s, then pulled his hand away from his hair and pinned it to the bed pointedly. If anything, he sped up, working his mouth harder.

Tony had to assume that that was permission – and if it wasn’t, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. He shouted, raw and feral, into Bucky’s mouth as he came in Steve’s. The super soldier swallowed enthusiastically, then licked Tony clean through his aftershocks. Bucky held him through it, right arm behind his shoulders holding him up and mouth on his the whole time. He had never experienced an orgasm quite so focused, or so _intimate_ before.

He eventually pulled far enough away from Bucky to take a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself.

“We got you, doll,” Bucky murmured into his ear, nuzzling his nose against Tony’s cheek. Tony could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

“ _God,_ Tony,” Steve breathed, rushing up to kiss him almost as soon as Bucky gave him the space. “The sounds you make. The way you move.” He looked almost as wrecked as Tony felt.

And that just wouldn’t do, not when he was still wearing pants and Tony had promised him a blow job.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, Captain,” Tony said, with more bravado than he actually felt. Watching Steve pull back to strip off the last of his clothing gave him a chance to relax into Bucky’s arms and just breathe for another minute.

As soon as Steve was naked, Tony sat up and pushed the super soldier down into the mattress, thankful they were using his giant, custom bed where they could all spread out. Steve complied easily, looking up at Tony with a gentle smile in those bright blue eyes. Tony couldn’t help bending down to kiss him softly on the lips.

“God, Steve, look at you,” Bucky said over his shoulder, leaning onto Tony’s back to run his fingers over Steve’s abs and ribs. “Mouth like that and you still have such a pretty blush.”

“Really, Buck?” Steve tried to give his boyfriend a put-upon face, though his smile still shined through.

“He’s right,” Tony agreed, tracing down Steve’s stomach with one hand, then using a finger to trace the crease between his hip and his thigh. “Can’t resist you when you blush like that.”

“I get the feeling I’m being ganged up on,” Steve admitted.

“Not at all,” Tony lied before bending to kiss him again, hand flattening to grip his upper thigh.

“Not tonight, anyway,” Bucky agreed. “Tonight we’re ganging up on Tony, remember?”

Tony lifted his head to give Bucky a wry look. “Is that what this is?” he asked.

Steve caught his cheek in his hand and brought him back to look him in the eye. “Don’t listen to him, sweetheart,” Steve said. “He just wants to get a rise out of you.” He kissed Tony again, clearly trying to distract him from Bucky’s words.

Predictably, it worked. Tony had a job to do, after all, and that job was to blow Captain America’s mind.

He pulled away from Steve’s kiss, but only so he could start making his way down his torso, kissing and biting his sensitive neck for a few seconds before descending to devote his attention to his nipples. Steve’s answering moan was intoxicating, and Tony took his time giving the other one the same attention. Steve reacted exactly as Tony had thought he would the last time they were together.

“Tony,” Steve moaned, hand in Tony’s hair.  

“Hmm?” Tony asked, lifting his eyes to meet Steve’s, but keeping his nipple firmly between his teeth.

“God, you’re going to be the death of me,” Steve moaned. “The two of you.”

Tony glanced down to where Steve was looking, and realized that Bucky was jerking Steve off slowly, with a loose, lazy hand. Tony batted him away, making Bucky laugh. He had _plans_ for that.

He reached up and kissed Steve again – just because he could, and who knew how many chances he would get? – then resettled himself between Steve’s legs.

“How do you want this, Cap?” Tony asked, voice smooth and arch as he traced his fingernails over Steve’s inner thighs. He leaned down and licked up Steve’s shaft, loving how his tongue made Steve gasp and shiver. “Quick and dirty, or should I take my time?”

“Whatever you want, Tony,” Steve breathed out, a desperate whine in his voice.  “Just want you.”

Tony grinned, then darted his tongue out to swirl around just the head of Steve’s dick. It was so much better, having been denied this the first time around.

“Take your time, doll,” Bucky said from behind Tony. His left hand was suddenly cool and hard against Tony’s ribs, and he was kissing down Tony’s spine. Tony shivered.

Message received, loud and clear. He bent down and took Steve in his mouth in earnest.

As he began to suck and tease Steve’s dick, Bucky let one finger drift down to play against his buttocks, then creep down to his hole. Knowing exactly what the super soldier was doing, he did his best to relax and pressed back against the digit.

Bucky pressed into him just as he sucked Steve all the way down.

“Oh, god, your mouth,” Steve groaned, voice already absolutely broken. Tony hummed in the back of his throat, letting the vibrations flow over Steve, as Bucky started to prep him.

“Tony,” Steve breathed out, reaching down to touch Tony’s face. To his surprise, Steve just held his hand gently against his cheek, feeling as his muscles worked, but not directing or asking for anything. He let Tony do his work, bobbing and sucking and putting his tongue to good use whenever he needed air.

By the time Bucky was stretching Tony out with a second finger, Steve was begging for release. “Tony, please,” he moaned, letting his hands drop to the sheets where they could ball into fists without worrying about his strength. And damn, but Tony could easily get addicted to the sound of this man begging.

Who was Tony to deny him? He quickened his motions and sucked harder at Steve’s dick, using one hand to jerk him off from the root so he could concentrate his attention on the head.

“I’m not gonna last here,” Steve panted. “Tony, I’m – I’m –“

Tony just increased his pace, eager to take whatever the Captain gave him. He stretched his fingers over Steve’s abs, closing his eyes and just letting himself _feel_ as Steve’s muscles contracted, heralding his orgasm.

Steve came hot and strong in his mouth, much more than Tony anticipated. He swallowed down what he could, and let the rest splash his neck and shoulders.

Apparently that was a turn on for Steve, who pulled him up almost as soon as he came, Bucky pulling his fingers away smoothly. Steve kissed him desperately though his aftershocks, hands coming up to hold Tony tight to him as he shivered and groaned into Tony’s mouth. Tony just held on for the ride, burying the fingers of both hands into Steve’s hair and letting him hold him close.

“Tony,” Steve whispered. “Tony, sweetheart –”

“Right here, babe,” Tony said, forehead resting on Steve’s. 

Once Steve had a chance to catch his breath, Tony lifted himself up so he was on his knees and glanced back at Bucky. “Weren’t you in the middle of something?” he asked, wiggling his hips invitingly.

“Bossy,” Bucky teased, but he got back to work, stretching Tony wide with three fingers.

“He likes that: bossy bottoms,” Steve told Tony conspiratorially, fingers coming up to trace Tony’s face. Steve got cuddly after coming, Tony remembered. This time Tony was happy to give him what he needed, as long as Bucky was taking what he needed to. It was all so intense, though – with all his experience, nothing Tony had ever done came close to this.

“That’s enough prep, I’m good to go,” Tony told the other soldier, suddenly needing to be thoroughly fucked – needing a place to run from all the emotions Steve inspired in him.

“You sure, doll?” Bucky asked.

“C’mon, Barnes,” Tony replied. “Don’t make me beg for it.”

“Maybe next time. This time, you get whatever you want,” Steve said, voice sappy and sweet, as Bucky pulled away.

Tony indulged him with a smile, hoping – and still unconvinced – that there would even be a next time.

Bucky moved Tony’s ankles so his legs were spread wide, with Steve’s legs straight together beneath him, giving Bucky room to position his knees between their legs on each side. It was a novel position, but Tony was willing to give it a try if it kept him between the two super soldiers.

Steve held him steady as Bucky pressed into him, giving him plenty of time to adjust to his thick, well-lubed dick as it slid into him. “Oh god,” he gasped, mouth going off without permission. “When you – last time, when you asked me to top, I would have never said yes if I knew you’d feel like _that_ , Barnes. Damnit, move. _Please,_ move!”

“Can’t get enough of that mouth, doll,” Bucky told him, starting to thrust into him.

“How’s it feel, Tony?” Steve asked, hands coming up to trace Tony’s ribs and play with his nipples. “It’s good – the best, right? Love it whenever Bucky’s inside of me.”

“Damn, you feel so good,” Bucky moaned over him. “Stevie, can’t wait to see you in ‘im too, dollface. Watch as the two of you make each other lose control.”

 _These two are going to be the death of me,_ Tony thought, biting his tongue desperately, not trusting himself to answer.

Bucky adjusted his hips for a better angle, and then he was hitting Tony’s prostate with each movement. Tony found himself getting hard again, despite his earlier orgasm. It was all he could do to grab Steve’s shoulders to balance himself with trembling hands.

“We’ve got you, sweetheart,” Steve said, eyes catching Tony’s. He shifted away a moment and grabbed the tube of lube Bucky had left on the bedspread. Then he had one hand on Tony’s neck, fingers combing through the short hair at the back of his head, and the other around both of their dicks – because of course super soldiers had _no_ refractory period. Tony was getting hard again, but he knew enough to recognize that that didn’t mean anything.

“I don’t know if – “ he started, feeling an unfamiliar blush rising up over his cheeks, making him wish for his sunglasses. He forced out the admission, “I’m not as young as I used to be, Cap.”

“We just want you to feel good,” Steve told him gently, continuing to move his hand over the two of them in time with Bucky’s thrusts.

“Tony, I’m gonna come,” Bucky warned him, voice tight and thrusts getting wild.

“Come on, Barnes,” Tony said, barely able to get the words out himself as Steve picked up the pace. His body was vibrating between them, on fire with lust and desire. “Come on, let me feel it. Fill me up.”

Bucky thrust into him one last time before letting out a deep growl as he came, back extending up and raking nails down Tony’s back with both hands.

The feel of him – the _sound_ of him – shockingly pushed Tony over the edge as well, coming hot over Steve’s hands – mixing their come together as Steve came beneath him. He shouted something himself, his mouth going off again, no filter between his brain and his words. It was –

God, it was a religious experience, orgasming between the both of them.

Tony collapsed onto Steve, brain completely shut off, as soon as he was done. He barely noticed as Bucky pulled out, and only vaguely noted someone cleaning him up tenderly with a warm, wet towel. The only thing he really encoded was Steve’s arms around him, and the cadence of his words as he whispered sweet nothings into his ear.

He didn’t really come back to himself until Bucky pulled him off Steve completely, wrapping him up in his own arms, chest to chest. “That was amazing, doll,” Bucky said sleepily.

“It really was,” Steve said, tucking himself against Tony’s back.

“The best,” Tony managed, completely blissed out, and exhausted to boot.  

Steve chuckled against his back, letting Tony feel the vibrations in his own bones. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Tony let his eyes drift closed, feeling two pairs of lips kissing his hair as he fell into an exhausted sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could draw, because I have the images of all three of those orgasms etched in my brain in such lifelike detail. I hope you all enjoyed that release as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> One chapter left!! :D


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple really good talks.

Steve woke up first the next morning, still holding both his lovers so close that Tony’s hair tickled his nose and Bucky’s forehead almost brushed his.

He looked to Bucky first, and was surprised to see his boyfriend so relaxed in a strange bed. He was curled around Tony still, nose buried in the genius’s hair and right arm nestled under his head, and he looked perfectly content. Steve stopped himself from reaching out to touch him; the need to see him get a good, long rest outweighing the tactile need to show his adoration.

Instead he looked down at Tony – _their Tony?_ – who looked just as content. He was sleeping with one cheek against Bucky’s bicep, back against Steve’s, and legs tangled up with both of them. Steve’s right hand had been on his hip all night, but now he began to rub his thumb in small circles over the bone.

He thought back to last night: how responsive Tony had been, how he had melted under their touch and fit in with them like a missing puzzle piece. It had been beautiful, watching him come, hearing him screaming their names like mantra as he released himself onto Steve’s stomach. 

_“Yeah, Bucky, like that. How do you two know me so well already? Steve, how are you_ doing _that to me? Can I keep you? Please say I can – Steve, Bucky, I – I – I –”_

Steve wondered what he had been about to say, before the strength of his orgasm ripped his words away from him.

He closed his eyes and inched close to kiss the top of Tony’s head, unable to stop himself.

Cool metal fingertips brushed his cheek affectionately, and he opened his eyes. Bucky was staring at him, eyes happy and soft. Steve smiled back and leaned into the touch, grateful that after all this time, the two of them could still read each other so well. Or maybe it was just that the same thoughts were echoing in each of their brains.

_I love him, too._

Steve pulled away after a moment and nodded to the bathroom. Bucky gave a short nod, but he could see the threat against waking Tony clear in his eyes. Steve rolled his eyes, but made sure to use all of his superhuman agility to create the least disturbance possible as he disengaged and slid off the bed. He grabbed his pants on the way out, but left his shirt discarded on the floor.

By the time he returned, Tony was slowly waking on his own, rolling onto his back and blearily blinking up at Bucky. Steve slipped out of the room before Tony noticed him and went straight to the kitchen where an extra-large cup of hot coffee was already brewing.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” he whispered. He grabbed it and spooned in a few sugars as soon as it was done, then returned to his lovers.

Tony was fully awake now, lying lazily on his back with his arms stretched over his head, still under the covers. Bucky was on his side beside him, propping up his head with one arm, watching him.

“Good morning. Got any more of that for me out there?” Tony asked, sitting up and eying the coffee cup.

“Good morning, Tony. Very good morning,” Steve said, knowing the smile he flashed Tony could be described as sappy, but not really caring. He put the coffee down on the nightstand within easy reach. “This one’s yours.”

Tony gave him a wide smile and grabbed it. He took a long sip, eyes closed in bliss, before looking back up at Steve. “Darling, you know me so well,” he drawled.

Steve laughed, feeling some nervousness seep out of his muscles at the endearment. “Sweet. Dark. You’re easy,” he said, slipping back onto the bed beside Tony. He laid down, mirroring Bucky’s pose.

“Not too easy, I hope,” Tony teased, though there was something sweet and shy in his voice.

Bucky’s rumbling laugh actually made the bed shake, causing Tony to clasp his cup tighter. “No, doll. Except for coffee, easy is not the word I’d use for you.”

Tony sniffed. “First time I’ve heard that,” he said dismissively. He took another sip of his coffee, and Steve _watched_ as his muscles tensed up. Steve could practically see the gears turning in his head, and he felt like he would do anything to never have to see the inventor doubt himself like that again.

He almost reached out to stroke his leg comfortingly, but then he remembered that Tony was still probably naked under the covers, and Bucky was in only his boxer briefs. He didn’t know where their boundaries were yet – though he had high hopes, considering Tony’s relative comfort with them still in his bed.

“So what’s going on here?” he asked, looking between Tony and Bucky. “Was last night – ” He swallowed, nervous. “Was it just a one-time thing, or are we…?”

Tony looked at him, a serious note in his eyes, then turned to Bucky. “You really want this? You two have been together since before I was born – you _work_. You work so well together. You really want to risk all that? With me?”

“Absolutely,” Steve said, automatically, taking a chance to lay his hand on Tony’s knee over the duvet. “We know three people are harder to navigate than two, but it’s worth trying. _Especially_ with you.”

“You know I’m not a good bet, right?” Tony continued, seemingly oblivious to Steve’s words. “I’m terrible to date, actually: I forget days, anniversaries, lose myself in projects, run off on wild goose chases all the time. I’m terrible at gifts – the more they matter, the worse it is. And then there’s the whole arc reactor thing.”

“First of all, we don’t care about half of that stuff, and we’re just as bad with the rest. And second of all, you gotta let us make that call for ourselves,” Bucky said, reaching out to lay his hand over Steve’s, squeezing it faintly. “The way I see it, we’re already all mixed up with each other. Seems like the good bet is to do what we all want to anyway, than to try to pretend there’s nothing there.”

“Besides, I’m pretty sure we know what we’re getting ourselves into with you,” Steve told him. “After all, you’ve had our back for years now, haven’t you? We just want to add another layer or two to that.”

Tony looked between them, a faint smile on his face. “Yeah, I want to, too,” he admitted. He looked at them again, as if scared they would fade away. “You two are incredible,” he said softly. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“That mean I can kiss you, doll?” Bucky asked.

Steve held his breath, watching Tony’s face as he thought it over.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “God help me, but yes.”

Bucky’s smile mirrored the one Steve felt stretching his own face wide. Steve laid back, watching as Bucky took the coffee cup out of Tony’s hands and deposited it safely on the nightstand, then leaned in to kiss Tony soundly on the lips.

As soon as he disengaged, Steve was there, kissing him, then Bucky, morning breath and all. “We’re really going to do this?” he breathed, chest fluttering excitedly. He reached out and stroked Bucky’s face with one hand, and Tony’s with the other, half shocked that he was _allowed to do this now_.  There was a note of surrealism to the moment that he couldn’t really get over.

Tony smirked at him. “Get with the program, Rogers. I know you’re used to a simpler time and all, but we _just_ went over this.”

Bucky started laughing again at that, while Steve gaped at him. Tony flashed him a blindingly bright, impish smile before leaning in and kissing him. “Yes, we’re doing this,” he said when he broke away, leaning their foreheads together and running his fingers through the hair on the back of Steve’s neck. “You’re not allowed to tell me this is all an elaborate joke now.” And for all that Tony tried to keep his voice light, Steve could still hear the slight waver of distrust.

“Never,” Steve said, putting all the love and sincerity he could muster into the word.

He looked down at the blankets pooled around Tony’s waist. It would be so easy to pull them off and show Tony exactly how happy he was with this new development.

His stomach chose that moment to rumble at him – _loudly_ – and remind him that he had not had anything to east since before their strenuous activities last night. He looked over to Bucky hopefully. “Can we celebrate with omelets?”

Bucky rolled his eyes playfully. “How did you manage to not even learn to make _eggs_ without me, punk? You had years on your own.”

Steve pouted, knowing Bucky would give in if he saw. “Usually Clint or Bruce would make them for me, or I’d just have cereal,” he admitted. “And I _can_ make them – they’re just never as good as yours.”

Tony’s eyes grew wide, looking between their expressions as they teased each other. “The two of you! Is this what I’m signing up for here?”

 Bucky shook his head. “A boyfriend who can’t even make himself breakfast? Yeah, but he makes up for it in other ways,” he said with a conspiratorial wink – and Steve was _sure_ he would have to get used to them ganging up on him. Before Steve could open his mouth to protest, he continued. “C’mon, let’s get cleaned up, then I’ll make breakfast.”

Steve watched them fondly as they left the bed for the en suite, reveling in the chance to ogle Tony’s bare backside. Then, thinking of the plans Tony had made last night, he grabbed his phone off the nightstand where he had left it last night, preparing a text.

 

**Capt. S. Rogers: We need you at Avengers tower tonight, by 7PM. The earlier the better. Avengers business.**

**Col. J. Rhodes: Be there by six.**

 

…

 

When Rhodey got to the communal floor of Avengers Tower, as directed by Steve Rogers of all people, he wasn’t really sure what to expect.

He knew that Tony, Rogers and Barnes had something going on, but he wasn’t sure how much they had talked or avoided each other. He was half certain that this was Rogers’ Hail Mary play to just get Tony to _talk to them_ , despite knowing for a fact that they had all had a dinner date the night before.

He was _not_ expecting to find – well, whatever was going on in the kitchen.

Tony was in the Iron Man suit, gauntlets off as he cleaned and deveined shrimp. Barnes was in an apron – a normal, plain white apron, with jeans and a henley beneath it, at least – chopping sundried tomatoes. And Rogers was sitting at the table, sketching.

Rhodey’s eyes stayed focused on Tony. “Really? You’re cooking in the armor now? I thought you said you were going to try to be in it _less_ from now on,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Colonel Rhodes!” Tony said through the armor’s vocal modulators. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”

Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “JARVIS, do me a favor, please, and lock the kitchen down. No access except the four of us.”

“I’m sorry, Colonel Rhodes, but it is against my programming to restrict communal kitchen access to any of the Avengers.”

Rhodey gave Tony an unimpressed look. “You’re such a drama queen, you know that?” he asked.

“Hey, you try keeping Thor out of here,” Tony told him. “The mess Mr. Stark had on his hands after –“

“You know what? No. We’re not doing this,” Rhodey interrupted. He turned and slapped his hand over the print scanner by the door. “Override alpha-four-zero-six-six-two. Please lock down the kitchen for me.”

“Override accepted,” JARVIS replied pleasantly as a metal door slid from the wall and over the kitchen entrance, giving them all some privacy.

Tony’s faceplate popped up almost immediately. “Drama queen? Really? I am _far_ from the most dramatic person living in this tower,” he complained. “Also, that override’s only supposed to be used if I’m incapacitated or worse. Not to get JARVIS to close a door when I’m _right here_.”

“Well, your common sense has clearly been incapacitated,” Rhodey shot back. He gave him a once-over, looking up and down the Iron Man suit. “I suppose you need that armor to protect you against shrimp guts, then?”

Tony pulled a face. “You know that the rest of the team doesn’t know who I am. What was I supposed to do?”

“Lock the door like a normal human being?” Rhodey asked.

Barnes snorted.

Tony glared at him. “E tu, Bucky?”

“Didn’t even know the kitchen had a door, doll,” Barnes said. “If I had, I wouldn’t have been nearly so quiet about you trying to cook in that lobster shell.”

 “Lobster shell? LOBSTER SHELL? I’ll have you know this is a highly advanced nickel-titanium alloy – ”

“Tony, please, get out of the suit,” Rhodey interrupted again. “At least the helmet?”

“Fine,” Tony said. The front of the suit opened up, and Tony stepped down out of it. “What are you even doing here? I thought you were in the Pentagon all week. Not that I’m not thrilled to see you again so soon, honeybear.” The last was delivered with a flirty smile.

“Got a direct order from Captain America. Avengers business,” Rhodey told him, walking up and pulling him into a hug. “The generals gave me the night off to deal with whatever it was you needed me for.”

Tony glanced at Cap. “Uh, yeah, sorry for not telling you?” Steve’s apology sounded more like a question than a statement. “I thought you’d like the extra back-up, tonight. And that you might like the surprise.”

Tony broke free of Rhodey’s embrace and strode over to Rogers, planting a kiss right on his lips as Rhodey watched, eyes growing wide. He had known that this was a possibility, of course, but knowing and seeing were two different things.

“Thanks, Steve. Good surprise,” Tony murmured. Rhodey noted - and approved of - the soft smiles both Steve and Bucky gave him. Tony was oblivious to them, of course. He looked up at Rhodey. “So, I know it’s only been a day since I last saw you, but I think we have some catching up to do. Grab a knife and help me with the broccoli.”

“This is what I skipped out on the Joint Chiefs for?” Rhodey asked teasingly, a little blindsided, but happy for Tony nonetheless.

He grabbed the biggest knife in the block. He figured it would make a good prop for the shovel talk he’d have to give the two super soldiers after Tony told him everything.

 

…

 

Armor safely back on, Tony sat at the head of the huge kitchen table, watching as Avengers filed in one by one. Bucky sat to his left, and Steve to his right. Rhodey was right next to Steve, calm implacable mask reassuring Tony as much as his two super soldier boyfriends’ presence.

(Two super soldier boyfriends. What in this life had he ever done to deserve them? How in the world was he supposed to hold onto them?)

Steve had set the table for nine, and Tony had made a feast of salad, linguini, shrimp scampi with sundried tomatoes and broccoli (as Maria Stark had made it on rare occasion, and as he had made it for Rhodey countless times in college), fresh Italian bread from a bakery around the corner, and more white and rosé wine than even the Avengers could probably drink. There were cannoli, cookies, and a good ricotta cheesecake waiting for dessert, because Bucky apparently couldn’t be trusted to order bread from a bakery without adult supervision.

 A few – particularly Barton and Natasha – gave them suspicious looks and questions when they walked in to see Iron Man at the table, but Steve diplomatically asked them to wait until everyone arrived before any explanations would be given. Tony just concentrated on taking deep breaths in the suit, wishing he had thought to wait somewhere else while they all showed up.

Bucky reached out and put a hand on his knee, and it helped. Even though he couldn’t actually feel it, the sight of his hand against the bright red suit allowed him to breathe a little easier.

Thor was the last one in. As he took his seat at the foot of the table, Tony stood up.

“Sorry for the late notice on this,” he said, trying to remember the speech he had gone over with Steve. He had nixed the index cards Rhodey had offered, and now he was wishing he hadn’t. “I know, team dinners are usually a Thursday thing, and I don’t usually show up anyway but....There’s also been a lot of issues, mostly having to do with Mr. Stark. And we – well, I – thought it was time to clear it all up.”

He took a deep breath and looked around at his teammates. Natasha was as unreadable as ever, but Bruce looked a little dismayed beside her. Clint just looked annoyed, but Thor and Sam were watching him with patient interest. Steve, Bucky and Rhodey had begrudgingly agreed to stay silent unless he needed them, so they just watched with encouraging expressions.

“The truth is,” he paused, gathering his courage. He took a breath. Might as well do this with some flare, if he was going to do it.

He nodded to give JARVIS his cue, and the armor opened up dramatically. “The truth is, I’m Tony Stark. I mean – Tony Stark is Iron Man. I’m sorry I kept you all in the dark for so long.”

He sat down, watching as his world blew up in front of him, possibly taking with it every scrap of good in his life.

“Bullshit!” Clint was the first to react. “You’ve been the same person this whole time, and you didn’t trust us enough to tell us that? We’re a _team_ – how do you even do that?”

To Tony’s surprise, Natasha stared the archer down. “Think, Clint. Tony Stark has been doing this for longer than any of us, at least those of us who weren’t on ice five years ago. He didn’t have the luxury of a team to back him up if he told the world who he was.”

“That makes sense, before the Chitauri at least,” Bruce said, and Tony was crushed to hear real hurt in his voice. “But what about the last few years? Couldn’t you trust us after everything we’ve been through?”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, meaning it as he looked Bruce in the eyes. He looked around at the other Avengers. “I understand if you want me off the team. Your place here, your funding – nothing else will be affected by that.”

“Now just wait a minute,” Sam said, putting up a hand. “I’m not saying that we’re not angry or confused – because we definitely are – but no one wants you off the team, Tony.”

“I don’t know – not sure if I’m really sure you have my back after this,” Clint admitted. Tony didn’t blame him.

“Clint,” Natasha said warningly. “This is my fault.”

Clint looked at her, shocked. “How – Nat, this isn’t your fault.”

“I’m the one who wrote the recommendation on Iron Man. After reading it, Fury was only willing to have Iron Man on the team if Tony Stark was kept out.” She looked up and caught Tony’s eyes. “Put you in a pretty tough spot, didn’t it?”

Tony nodded, not at all surprised by how quickly she had put that together. “The minute I told you, I’d be off the team.”

Bruce nodded, looking somewhat appeased at least. Clint looked even more affronted by the idea that. “Well that – that’s even worse! You’re telling me Fury was fine with you putting us up, making us shit, paying our bills, but – what? He didn’t want you to interact with us? What kind of –?”

Tony’s head was spinning. First the archer was angry with him, and now he was _defending him?_

“Clint,” Steve said, and when Tony looked at him, he had a bemused look on his face. “I think we can all agree that Fury made some mistakes when we started this initiative. But there’s no sense in getting hung up over all of it now.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Clint sat back in his seat, silent but obviously still fuming.

“Listen, I didn’t want to keep you all in the dark, but by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, we’d been together long enough that I probably should have trusted you already. I thought if I told you then –“ he shrugged, unwilling to repeat how he believed his team would abandon him. “I hope I was wrong.”

He looked around at his teammates, looking for some kind of clue as to what to say next.

Thor nodded decisively, then stood up and grabbed the open bottle of rosé in front of him. The whole team watched as he divided it between nine glasses, and handed them out to each Avenger.

He raised his glass, then finally spoke. “My dear friends, I believe we are all focusing on the wrong information here. Tony Stark has long hid in the shadows, eschewing the glory that was rightfully his, because he has been under the misconception that he would not be given his due. We should be celebrating him giving us his truth, not bemoaning the length of time it took for him to do so.” He stretched his arm, saluting Tony at the head of the table. “To our brother in arms: Iron Man! Tony Stark!”

Steve, Bucky, and Rhodey were the first to raise their glasses with him, but Tony was surprised to see that Clint was right behind them, followed by Natasha, Bruce, and a nodding Sam. He looked around at all of them, but let his gaze land on Thor. “Are you for real right now?” he asked stupidly.

Thor smiled at him. “I see no reason to deny you the honor you have earned,” he said in that deep, oddly formal way he still had sometimes.

Tony looked around again, letting a stunned smile creep over his face as he realized that Thor had truly won them over to his side.

“I think Stevie and I won our bet, doll,” Bucky said, leaning over close and keeping his voice low so only Tony could hear him. He reached out and took Tony’s hand under the table, squeezing it briefly.

Tony’s chest tightened happily, and he smiled at his boyfriend.

“Should we tell them?” Steve asked, leaning over to whisper into his other ear.

Tony nodded. “If you’re comfortable with it.”

Steve and Bucky both gave him the same predatory grin.

Before either of them could open their mouths though, Thor beat them to the punch. “It seems as though another toast is in order!” he boomed, standing up and stalking over to his personal cabinet, which they all knew was locked under both spell and key. “Though this time, with fine Asgardian wine!”

Tony beamed. With Thor on their side, he was pretty sure there was nothing to worry about.

He even let Bucky kiss him right there, as he tuned out the pandemonium exploding around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD IT'S DONE!!! 
> 
> (Well, probably. I had originally thought of doing an epilogue for this, but I feel like it's complete as is. I reserve the right to change my mind on that later, though.)
> 
> This was my favorite fic to write, probably ever, or at least since email groups back in 2007 where we had small, tight-knit communities where we all pretty much knew each other. All your comments and kind words meant the world to me as I was posting it. This was my second fic with this OT3, and I have to say based on the community alone, I want to stay here for a while (which is great, because I have a handful of outlines and WIPs already started). Thank you all so much! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated! Or, come follow me at rosaleenban.tumblr.com


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